Yeah.
Oh, man.
Super Bowl LX.
I'm going to try to calm myself down.
We are taping Cousin Sal is with me.
We're taping 7 p.m.
Pacific time.
Just watched an awesome Seahawks Rams game.
My beloved Patriots won the AFC title in a blizzard.
They did not give up a point for 55 minutes and won 10 to seven.
And then we had a really fun football game.
I'll let you pick Sal.
What do you want to start with?
I mean, I uh, You know they're saying me having to listen to you gloat is perhaps the most courageous.
It's the most courageous 90 minutes ever aired on Netflix.
Calling me the greatest athlete ever if I could put up with it.
I would.
Yeah, you enduring this versus the guy climbing a giant building in Taipei.
Right, right, right.
So you're saying it's like 50-50.
I think it's close.
They'll both be about an hour and a half, right?
By the way, I lost money on that.
I parlayed Justin Gaethje with the guy.
I bet him the fall, basically.
So anyway, I had to dig out.
No, you didn't.
No, no, no.
It hasn't gotten that bad, Bill.
I can't.
We got to talk about that at the end.
I can't wait to talk about that thing yesterday.
Let's let's go.
We have a Seahawks Patriots Super Bowl.
Yeah.
Which I think America is going to warm up to over the next two.
First of all, the villainous Patriots are back, even though this is a precocious overachieving team.
Pat says the underdogs flashbacks to 01 Sam Darnold redemption.
This is one of the great underdog stories in the history of the NFL.
I think this is if they win, he's up there with Jim Plunkett, all that stuff.
Malcolm Butler, revenge game, the worst Superbowl loss.
What was the worst Superbowl loss in your opinion?
That one or the Falcons 28 to three.
Oh, 28-3 is so hard to beat.
I mean, it's not like the Bills dominated the Giants, but that Norwood, just knowing what happened afterwards the next three years, was bad too.
There have been some bad ones, but 28-3.
Yeah, I mean, you're part of them.
That was the worst collapse.
The Butler one was, I think, the biggest holy shit.
Wait, we're not about to win the Super Bowl and we just lost?
Yeah.
And then the Norwood was, I think, probably the hardest kick in the nuts.
Yeah.
Right.
That's where I would land on those three.
Yeah.
Well, we have that.
So it's a Malcolm Butler revenge game.
And we have Brable basically becoming Belichick.
I mean, this is like watching when Hulk Hogan left WWE and they were just trying to replace him.
It would have been like if we had actually replaced Hulk Hogan.
Yeah.
Maybe that wouldn't have been a great idea.
And then Drake, with a chance to position himself as the next guy, even though he wasn't good today, but to emerge.
Josh Allen never made a Super Bowl.
Burrow made one.
Mahomes won a few.
But could he move into that pass?
So what other storylines are in there for you?
I don't know.
I think you're dead on.
I was kind of thinking about it.
I'm like, man, this is such a bummer with the Patriots.
This is like 30 tuck rules in a row.
30 for 30 tuck rules, the way they got to this position here.
But then I'm like all right, maybe this is the football gods trying to build some heat for the Patriots, trying to make them hate it again.
Oh, they got there with the easy schedule.
You know, Mac Holland's proven to be a pregame sociopath and Vrabel is unlikable.
And I haven't even mentioned the alleged criminals on your team, but it's building heat.
Like, you just slammed Snook over the head with a coconut.
Congratulations.
It's, I mean, Kraft interjected himself into the Vrabel postgame.
Yeah.
You know, Vrabel's giving this great speech.
He's calling them warriors.
He's, you know, telling them, Basically, we have one day off.
Then we're about the next game trying to win it.
And he's about to bring everybody in.
And Kraft's like, if I can interject and comes in and does the game ball thing.
But, you know, Kraft's on the team for 32 years.
This is his, I think, 11th AFC championship.
Cause they won in 96, the AFC.
I think it's 13.
Isn't it 13?
I think for, for craft.
Oh, I think he's, this is his 11th trip to the Superbowl.
So now, which is amazing.
Cause I remember when he bought the team, I was living in Boston.
We all thought they were going to move to St.
Louis.
Then it seemed like he might buy them and move to Hartford.
They were the black sheep.
I've talked about all this.
It was a good purchase.
It was probably a smart purchase.
Really worked out for him.
It didn't seem as smart this decade after Belichick left and it looked like we were just going to have a steady stream of Mac Joneses and those type of guys.
It was going to be disappointing.
We were going to stink, and that's not what happened.
Why don't we talk about Seahawks-Rams first?
Because that just happened and i have more in the moment thoughts.
I'm more prepared for the other game.
It really felt like two different right we're watching different sports right between the early game and the like.
It was like our parents playing pickleball in the morning versus like the aussie open semi-finals at night yeah, but uh well, i was thinking like And did we talk about this last?
I remember talking about this in my podcast with somebody like this weather variable we have for football, which we were just used to,
And it's kind of insane that a blizzard basically decided this Patriots Broncos game.
And then you watch the next game.
I don't know what the weather was like there, but at least the field was clear and people could see who they were throwing to.
And it was like, oh yeah, this is a completely different sport.
Yeah.
Why don't we add fire?
Might as well add fire to the first game too.
Like put a moat at midfield or something.
I watched this entire game.
I had no idea who I wanted the Pats to play for most of the three hours.
And I was texting, I was multiple Pats fan threads.
I was texting with my dad.
My dad was just confused.
He's like, I don't know what to root for.
He got bouncing back and forth.
And I think, I think, ultimately I'm a little happier that it's the Seahawks, because I think all we've done is see them at home.
Darnold was incredible today.
Now it's going to have two weeks of Sam Darnold puff and smoke up his butt, but Um, I just thought the Rams are so scary.
And honestly, that fourth and four was basically the game, right?
Oh, crap.
I'm saying they get that.
Sorry.
Did you see this just came in?
Sam Donald got his right arm caught in the door of the team bus.
They have to, it's another one.
They have to amputate, but he's willing to play left-handed.
So the boat next thing I'd believe that it's another break for you guys.
Good.
Uh, the fourth and four.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it's just.
It felt like these two teams were even, but when you throw in the home field maybe the Rams were like an inch better, but I honestly, both of these teams are better than the Patriots for the Patriots.
We haven't done guess the lines.
I've not seen the lines, but they're.
It's at least going to be over a field goal for for the Seahawks.
But I think it would have been either team.
Do you think the line would have been any different depending on who won?
Cause I don't know unless there was like a blowout in this game and it seemed like there wasn't going to be until.
I mean, it could have been two scores if not for that crazy taunting.
I don't know in what order you want to want to hit this, but, um, but no, if you saw a close Seahawks Rams game, it was probably going to be the same line against the Patriots.
I had a couple of things that went, Hey, we'll start with Darnold versus Stafford.
So they had that 38, 37 game, which was probably the best regular season game of the year.
And ironically swung the home field for this with that crazy two point play.
I can't believe if I, if we had done this in August when we were doing the preseason, guest aligns and all the futures and stuff, what would the Fando odds have been for?
Sam Darnold versus Matthew Stafford will be our best quarterback rivalry in the 2025 season.
Oh, wow.
Because that's what ended up happening.
Those two guys today and in week 16 played two of the most fun games we've seen all year and really seemed like they were elevating each other.
And I just the odds of that.
When they got Darnold over the spring-summer it was like ah, they turned Geno Smith into Darnold.
Do you think they're better or worse?
Now he's going toe-to-toe with the guys probably going to win the MVP.
Well, don't sleep on Stidham against May because that could blossom into a great, great rivalry.
We have no idea.
We don't know where it's going to go.
Football teams were 60-1 to win the Super Bowl.
Your Patriots and Seahawks right around there going in.
So for them meeting up, I didn't even figure out what it would be.
But yeah, their over-under was eight and a half wins.
And I wasn't like sold on Darnold.
I said, you know what?
He really didn't have to do anything last week.
That game was over in two plays, which makes it I think it was five weeks before he had a 200 yard game, the oblique, who knows?
So he didn't really prove what he, it's not his fault.
They do.
All they had to do was run.
And Kenneth walk was amazing last week, but I was like, maybe he doesn't have it in him.
He was great.
I mean, JSN is terrific too.
We can get to all those guys.
But yeah um yeah, he did not disappoint at all.
Donald didn't turn the ball over, i thought, had a couple like superb throws.
The throw to shaheed and the first drive yeah, perfect.
Even brady was like oh, you gotta hit that.
And then they showed the replay and he was like wow, that was a great throw, that was an a, that was an a throw.
Dropped it right over the shoulder.
He had that, i thought, the touchdown throw right after the uh, right after the uh kick kick fumble.
I think it was Bobo in the end zone but he kind of threw it a little across his body at pressure.
I thought he stepped around.
I didn't see the Sam Darnold panic stuff.
I have a good friend of mine, Mark Cimino, who's a diehard Jets fan and has been pissed that they got rid of Darnold ever since they got rid of him and actually roots for Darnold by proxy because he knows that Jets have no chance.
And he's like the most vindicated of anyone.
He was just like, Darnold was good.
We destroyed him.
We poisoned him.
We had him swimming in our poison pool and he got poisoned and he got out and he learned to swim again.
It was basically the Sam Darnold thing.
But he was really good.
So Jets fans bummed out by it, but also Vikings fans, obviously.
That's got to be the other team that's watching this going, wow.
Jets fans, a miserable Super Bowl, right?
Because you're not going to root for the Patriots either.
No, this is awful.
Aside from your friend.
I don't know how many are excited about Sam Darnold.
This is the first time the Jets fans have felt awful during a Super Bowl.
Oh, no.
That's right.
No, wait a minute.
They're not going to get there.
So Darnold was 25 for 36, 346 yards, three TDs.
And Stafford was over 300 too with three TDs.
But I just thought Darnold was great.
And the other fascinating thing was McDonald's.
So you remember week one?
Because I...
I had the Seahawks for the division.
I had a bunch of Seahawks overs and they they lost week one and he kind of coached scared in that game.
Remember we came on the pod that night and I was bitching about it.
And I was like, he doesn't trust his team.
Like you gotta be aggressive.
They were really aggressive in that last drive.
They got that fourth and four stop and they had the ball.
And instead of like being just handing into the line and trying to chew clock, they did some play action.
They ran out, they completed some passes.
Um, i got the call, i got the holding call, but that helped.
But uh, but yeah, that was uh yeah, they weren't.
They weren't laying back, that was for sure and like, and like they kind of came in spurts right like kenneth walker was great in the beginning.
He's great, it's like.
And then he kind of got lost for a couple quarters and like, if you've had kenneth walker in fantasy, they're like you had like eight weeks where he had like under 60 yards.
It wasn't pretty, yeah.
But then JSN steps in.
I know we talk about QB1s all the time.
Oh, is it Allen?
Is it Mahomes?
I think we settled on Allen being a QB2 and no QB1.
The receivers are really the fun rankings, right?
Whether it's JSN or Puka.
Once in a while we'll throw jamar chase in there when he'll have like 15 catches.
But jsn is a man and going over the the middle he got just slaughtered.
That one, that one shot uh, that one one long when he jumped in the air.
Yeah yeah, he also had a couple catches.
That didn't count.
He caught that ball under the goal post.
That was seven yards out of bounds.
Right, he was 10 for 153 with a td and puka was 9 for 165.
And they're just clearly the two best.
And it's interesting because a year ago you would have said Chase and Jefferson were clearly the two best.
These two now, I thought they needed all the catches and all the yards.
Puka had a couple like he had played in the first half when he was like going out to his right cutting in.
Like he was going to cut in almost to do like a button hook or something.
And he had a step on the guy and then he veered in front of him.
It was like a basketball move.
It's like what you do in basketball when you're in a fast break and you have the big man behind you and you want to put them on your hip.
He kind of did that with that guy and then went deep and Stafford hit him, but he does shit.
No other wide receiver does.
And then JSN, same thing.
Like he's doing stuff along the sidelines where you think he's going out of bounds and he's tiptoeing down for another eight yards.
Catches over the middle, catches in the corner so he can go deep.
Like, Those two guys just can do everything and they're reliable too.
And they especially Puka.
Some, some D backs have come out and I think the other D backs are mad, saying like it's kind of not fair what he's able to do in space.
Like it's, it's, it's unguardable.
It's not fair.
You know it's like a Euro step or something.
But he's getting open and jason, like you said, dragging the feet in the sidelines.
He could come, go over the middle those up.
But you know i want to get in there.
But cooper cup had a huge game that third and three with five minutes left and the third like uh, you know converting.
Obviously that first down was huge so they really brought it all.
Yeah, all his overs came in four for 36 and a td and a really big third down.
Catch um looked like a little more explosive.
It's funny because You know they don't have a backup running back anymore.
That guy, Helani.
Yeah.
I watch football every week.
I'm not positive I ever remember seeing him.
I'm sure I did, but he certainly didn't jump out.
And then, you know, they have the Bobo and Barner and these dudes.
But it's one of those offenses that you never feel.
You feel like they just shut down the one guy and you'll be fine.
And then somehow Darwin's a 346.
They also have an awesome punter who I thought had a couple of big ones and was single-handedly responsible for that.
Guy muffing the punt.
Right.
That thing just kept carrying and carrying and carrying backwards.
And he finally like just, he like tripped.
He tripped over his own feet.
I do feel bad because I cut away to the new special teams coach.
And it's like, all right, what the F is that guy supposed to do?
Tripped over his own feet.
He can't like hold them up there.
But yeah, that is a tough, that is a tough catch to make from your back.
And, and you figured that was it.
You have, when you fall, you just have to basically spasm forward and try to avoid it.
Oh, get out of the way if you can.
But I think he was so, so cooked by that.
It didn't matter.
It was going to hit him.
You know, it's funny.
When I watch football, I'm always thinking of all the things like you and I couldn't do when you watch these games, right?
Or like how many times we would just be knocked out or how much certain hits could hurt.
Like today.
Romandre in the first game was running and he was pushing the pile and it kind of stopped.
And then Hufanga came flying in from behind and just like nailed him in the back.
I was like, I would still be down.
Like they would have.
I would be, pieces of me would be going on three different cards and you watch this stuff and you're constantly marveling.
The thing I'm always amazed by is that, or one of the things is that uh, people don't muff these punts more.
Yeah.
When you think like these giant stadiums with the lights, a lot of light is, yeah.
And the ball's doing, there's wind and these guys make it look so easy.
And then when somebody actually and then plus there's gunners running at you, like trying to fuck with you, like they're going to hit you and then cut into the side.
And it's weird.
It doesn't happen more often, but the the irony of the Rams special teams is murdering them in a game.
This was the problem with their whole season.
Yes, i'd literally put them in the manifesto.
This was rule number 13, like beware of the bad special teams.
It should be like.
You know, you talk about this game all week, these two, these two games.
Right, and we did on the pre-game show and it's like we probably mentioned the special teams out of an hour and a half, we probably mentioned it for 40 seconds and it was a huge.
But you know, like some things you can't.
You can't like handicap, like miss field goals.
Who's going to miss, who's got the day.
You know, two weeks ago miss field goals were bad, but the special teams with the Rams, you can almost guarantee that's going to be one play that screws them, or they overcome it.
It's like, I think everybody considers him one of the four best coaches in the league, right?
How does he not fix this?
Right.
This seems like one of those where you just you do the roadhouse move and you're like I'm getting the best, cooler in the South.
I'm bringing Dalton in.
Name your price.
I'll pay you $1,000 a week.
Or just take everyone off the field.
Don't return punts anymore.
Everyone's gone.
Oh, that would be interesting.
Yeah, we're not trying to block punts or return them.
We're just letting them bounce around.
This game had great QBs, great receivers.
We had multiple GOATs.
Cause we had the Rams punt return, but then we had woolen with the taunting penalty.
Yeah.
Um, which I want to talk about one second.
Um, and it felt like that might flip the game.
I thought the announcers were excellent.
I thought Brady has come back for the year.
Is he eligible?
Oh, really?
Interesting.
I think he's been really good.
I really do.
I think he's last year and he said it.
There was an article written about him this week and he he basically said what we talked about last year on the pod.
It felt like he was so over prepared.
He was trying to work all this information that he learned all week and was just like doing and now you feel like you're watching the game with them and he's weaving in, like his experience when he played and the stuff he was doing about like that.
I thought his best points today was the JSN, the shoulder pads.
Yeah.
And he was like when you're, when somebody is running and their shoulder pads don't move, usually if their shoulder pads are going like this, you know they're going deep.
If they're lower, they're going to stop.
And he's like, nobody can read his shoulder pads, which makes them impossible to read.
I was like, holy shit.
I've never heard anyone say that before.
Yeah, he's like, shut up, Tom.
This is my secret.
Don't let that out.
But yeah, no, he's good.
He's better.
He's growing on me.
He doesn't get Botox during the games anymore, which I think helps.
He could focus now.
Yeah, the halftime probably.
He was as good announcing this year as he was bad at running the Raiders.
So we'll see if he can pull out both of them next year.
But I thought those guys, I thought they had good chemistry.
So we had the Cup revenge game which you mentioned, and then we had the Darnold coming out of it outdoing the guy who's probably going to win the MVP.
Let me follow.
Oh, yeah.
Yes, probably.
Yeah, we had that as well.
It'll be weird now.
Stafford was going to win it anyway, but May has been just shaky enough in the playoffs and Stafford was good enough that.
I don't know.
Speaking of shaky, how embarrassed you and Hench going off on Stafford, how he sucks.
And then, Oh my God.
And the Carolina game.
Yeah.
Just being good fans.
My God.
That's all I remember.
So Seattle threw for 201 yards in the first half, kept it going.
Um, the, the, let's talk about the big, the big swing plays, the taunting penalty.
Hmm.
What's your take?
Because I do feel like they were reffing a lot of this stuff differently in the playoffs than they do in week three.
Week three, they're calling that.
We're now in the NFC title game.
They just got this awesome stop.
It's 31-20.
They're about to punt.
Guy runs over, talks to the bench.
Of course, the officiating guy they have in the booth, he's got to agree with it.
Thank God we have those guys just to agree with everything.
Um i, i think those guys were um trying to think of one useful moment.
I can't think of any today.
Yeah yeah, they had the one on the fourth and one drake may, may sneak.
They go to.
Whoever was there for nothing, offered zero.
They could be, they could be ai.
At this point, i mean, you know exactly what you're getting for that.
But yeah, the the taunting.
My thing is who cares?
Like I don't care?
The fans don't care.
The people getting taunted don't care.
There's no way the Seahawks were insulted.
This is why they do...
Training camp.
That's why, on hard knocks, they'll sing songs and embarrass themselves and everything right.
So they can get used to getting taunted because emotions are going to run high in a football game, let alone the NFC championship.
So whatever, flags are going to go one way or the other.
If you get a tug on the shirt, you can maybe call holding.
But I don't like taunting at all to change a game.
I don't know who it's for.
I don't know if they're trying to teach sportsmanship to younger people.
Um, they felt like something was going out of line.
Here's where it falls apart for them.
It's the same sport with the same rule that after a turnover or safety or whatever, all of the defenders can run into the other end zone and fucking do snow angels and stuff.
So it's like that's not taunting, but Wollin getting excited that he just made a great stop and he's in front of the bench and he yells at a couple of people like I just don't understand, why do you have these two different outcomes for things that you're just governing completely different?
You could instruct the bench to look away.
Don't look at that end zone.
There's some stuff going on that you may not like.
It might hurt your feelings.
They're pretending they're bowling pins right now.
You might not be able to get over it.
If you're more than 20 yards away, you can time it.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
Just look away.
You can't take off your helmet on play, but yet we see it all the time.
As the guys are walking off the field, they'll take it off.
They don't, I've stopped trying to figure it out.
Um, did you think the Seahawks were the best team in the NFC?
I thought it was the Rams.
I lived and died with them.
And I thought actually, like you know, it's like this team maybe that Carolina road when wasn't great, maybe the bears road when wasn't great.
But the fact that they're winning these games, you know, means that, I don't know.
I just thought there was smidge better than Seattle, but I have no problem with Seattle going to the super bowl.
It's the other conference.
That's sort of messy.
Seattle had three.
I'm not going to ignore that.
Seattle had 396 total yards.
The Rams had 479 and lost.
And Stafford was like nifty too.
Like he had that Fernando Mendoza type run, right?
Like to get that first down.
He like had a weird pass to Nakua when nothing was going on left.
He was about to get sacked.
So it was a different kind of Stafford that we saw.
I was surprised that they were able to run on Seattle like they ended up doing as it felt like as the game went along.
What did they go for?
Corum was nine for 55.
Williams was 10 for 39.
Corum's longest was 19.
Williams' longest was 11.
It's not like they were getting huge plays.
It just felt like they were constantly getting four or five every play.
I thought, after last week, the reason I picked the Rams in this game.
I mean, I'm sorry the Seahawks, I just thought the bears should have won last week.
I didn't think the Rams are good enough.
And I thought the bears left a ton on the table from a passing standpoint which the Seahawks kind of bore out this week.
It really feels like the Rams peaked in the first, I would say three plus months of the season as an all around team.
And then as, as the longer we went along, it just kind of became Stafford and the running game in these, in these two receivers.
But that was kind of all they had.
Everything else was sloppy.
Special teams was bad.
And I didn't feel like they could get stops.
Yeah.
That's why they lost.
It's so close, right?
They lost that overtime, that game on the Thursday night.
They win that, they're home.
Maybe it's a different story.
By the way, 30000 tickets sold at SoFi today for people to just go in and watch on the large screen.
75% Seahawks fans.
No, I don't know.
I don't know.
I want to believe that.
I know.
But would that be more disgusting than actual Seahawks fans showing up to a real game?
I want to count on that if anyone was there.
I would like to know.
Well, if the Seahawks win, this would be the first time they've ever won the Super Bowl.
Yeah, I know.
I heard that last week.
Good luck to them.
How about uh, or the second time?
It'll be the second time they've won the Super Bowl because they beat the Broncos 40 to 8, and again we bet on.
And I forgot last week and you didn't correct me, I know I love Schrager the suck up blaming me, throwing me under the bus.
I started the segment saying three of the four outcomes are rematches of the Super Bowl.
What am I supposed to do?
I don't know.
Schrager the suck up, he knows it.
No, it's okay.
Just leave Tony Romo alone.
These things happen, you know?
I was excited.
I was excited that I apologized last week.
You know.
Heartfelt apology to Danny Kelly and the rest of the Seahawks fans, because that really could have come back to haunt me these next two weeks.
Definitely.
You don't even remember we won a Super Bowl, motherfucker.
I don't know.
Some people, Mina Kimes is not accepting the apology.
A lot of people, Joel McHale, a lot of Seahawks fans don't want anything to do with your apology.
Tall John just doesn't like me either way.
Yeah, he's unhappy regardless.
Well, when they played the Broncos, the Broncos were favored, right?
Yeah.
Slight, but yes, I'm pretty sure they were favored.
When they played the Patriots, who was favored in that?
I'm going to say we were favored.
I'll look it up as we're talking.
It was like three or three and a half.
I think we were favored.
They were going to cover... I don't know.
That was 2015?
Yeah.
It was three, wasn't it?
Yeah.
I think we were favored.
So this will be the first time they've ever been favored in the Super Bowl.
I guess.
I'm afraid to say anything anymore.
Seattle was minus one against... Oh, that's right.
Yeah.
And I think it tic-tacked around a little bit.
And I think the Pats were favored at one point.
And then the other one, Denver, was favored by two.
And the one that Seattle loved.
We watched that Super Bowl in a group of people that we'll probably never gather again.
Our cousin Jimmy says.
The Seattle, the New England one?
The Malcolm Butler game.
That was a really tough watch there.
Yeah, anyone, any mass hole you can imagine.
We had Affleck and Damon, Tony Kornheiser, right dickie barrett.
Yeah, who else was there?
It was, it was just a hodgepodge, it was.
It was basically the cast, i think whitey whitey bulger yeah, he left.
He left at halftime but yeah, he was still hiding.
I think seattle's really good.
I think they've been good all year and i haven't seen anybody kick their ass yet.
Now even they have three losses and they it's not like the pat's Sucked in week one against Vegas.
They sucked in the second half of the second Buffalo game.
They kind of sucked offensively for the entire game today.
There are other reasons for that, which we'll get into.
But Seattle's a much sturdier team.
That's why I was so surprised to see the Rams kind of go up and down the field on them.
I think you, deep down, you can't say it now, because now you have a lot of negative mojo for Seattle.
I think you're happy.
I think you're happy that the Rams are out of this.
I don't think you wanted to see Stafford.
I'll tell you what, I think the Rams' pass rush was a little better than Seattle's today.
You know that, too, and you like that, and you don't trust Sam Darnold as much as you do Stafford.
So I'm just telling you things that you know.
That's where I landed for most of today that ultimately, I would rather play Sam Darnold on a neutral field than Stafford and Puka and Devonta Adams in their running game.
So the Rams...
You'd think like the McVeigh stuff starts in 2017.
They lose the wild card to Atlanta.
The next year they win the NFC title on that ridiculous Saints call.
Although it did go to OT and the Saints did choke.
Lose to the Pats 13-3 in a game that nobody could remember four plays from.
Can you remember four plays from that game?
It was a big ground play.
Jared Goff was bad enough that They had to trade him.
I had the over, so I think I might have napped at halftime.
I don't think I even saw the rest.
2020, they lose to the Packers, and they end up moving on from golf.
2021.
They win the Super Bowl and they win three straight three-point games against Tampa and Brady, San Francisco and Cincy.
But then there was a couple, they didn't make it the next year.
They lose the tough Lions wildcard game.
Yeah, that one in 23.
And then the Eagles game last year, when it felt like they were coming on down the stretch and they had a chance to steal it.
This has been almost a decade now.
McVay's been pretty relevant.
Yeah.
But one-on-one in the Super Bowl.
Maybe it's the home field.
Sometimes home field doesn't matter.
It didn't matter in the AFC game today.
But if that game's not in Philly, maybe the Rams do win that.
If that game's not in Seattle today, maybe they do win.
Three road games in a row is pretty hard.
Yeah.
So the big question, the reason I brought that up is Stafford's going to be 38 next year.
He allegedly had a bad back this year, although he seemed fine all year.
But I just wonder. how long he can keep this train together.
Puka takes a million kajillion hits.
I have no idea how long his career is going to last, but I'm guessing it's not going to be a 15-year career for him.
Yeah, I don't know.
30 giant hits a game.
If he goes out for any substantial amount of time, this Rams team, even Stafford at his best, is not a 13-14 win team for sure.
Last thing I'll say before we throw it a break.
Um, I do like the Seattle fan base in general.
It's sort of probably my favorite non Boston.
I always hate.
No, I don't.
I like the, I think their basketball team got stolen.
I like the Seahawks fans.
Right.
Um, they go way back to that Zorn larger poster with the, when they're wearing the terrible jeans.
Did you have that one in your room?
Yeah.
I remember that one.
Depleted jeans.
Yeah.
Uh, but you know, checkered history.
And then it all came together in the beginning of 2010s.
And then um, they were the afterthought for most of the season.
Everybody was so focused on the rams.
Then it was rams or niners.
People are picking the cardinals as a surprise team and yeah, i mean, you and i made a list of uh, after that, caleb williams crazy to hell mary, that didn't matter.
Like we made a list of like the most in the greatest, most inconsequential plays of all time.
Caleb williams on, that's your main curse.
Catch, We forgot about that one in the Super Bowl.
I mean, that might be 1 and 1A, those two.
So yeah, these poor fans.
There was also three minutes where it seemed like the helmet catch.
That was like an official curse for the Pats.
It was like, we're going to lose on the helmet catch and that.
We're never going to win another Super Bowl in my lifetime.
All right, we're going to take a break.
We'll come back and talk Pats.
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2001.
Maybe it was January or December.
I can't remember.
Tom Brady's first playoff win round two Raiders in the snow.
The last home game in the old stadium, which had really had... Why don't you want to take a talk?
I'll just talk to the camera.
You know what?
Let me say something because I want to let you have your fun.
I just want to give the blizzards history.
You could have your fun and you could gloat, but so that this isn't a completely miserable situation for me, I have brought in a prop here.
I have a Rosa pizza pie from Bianco Pizza.
Can you see that?
Oh, that looks delicious.
Well, I know this is your favorite.
Yes.
You can't have pizza.
My current diet allows for it.
So go ahead.
You go talk about your snow game, Vinatieri and everything.
I'm going to eat some pizza while you do that.
You got the Rosa?
I got the Rosa, right?
Your favorite.
Yeah.
Eat a slice.
I'll do the snow.
That looks delicious.
That looks really good.
So snow game come back from down.
I think 10 ugly like this one was where they couldn't get any offense going for a long time.
John Gruden chokes on, I think, second and short, third and short.
Doesn't get a first down, punts it back.
We get the field goal with Vinatieri and everything starts.
This was snow game two, the mile high revenge.
We've never won in Denver in the playoffs.
We're owned for.
Rulon Jones, Jake Plummer, Champ Billy, 2005.
Still mad about that one.
Two Brady Manning losses in Mile High.
And then it decides to be a giant blizzard today.
And they go up 7-0.
Jared Stidham makes his only good throw of, I think, probably the entire day.
Hits Mims in stride.
They end up scoring.
Five minutes in the game, it's 7-0.
And I'm just like I can't believe this is yet another decade where we're going to get our ass kicked in Denver.
And then Denver never scored again.
And the Patriots won 10-7.
I'll start with Rabel.
You didn't like this game.
I'm going to, I'm going to go there.
No, no, no.
You from an entertainment standpoint, I didn't like this from an entertainment standpoint.
You didn't like a lot of people didn't like it.
They talked about how bad it was.
Let me defend it.
If you go back and you look at like pro football reference in the playoffs in the sixties and seventies football was.
There were a lot of football games like this where it was like bad weather field position.
Making some defensive stops.
Fourth and one plays.
Don't fuck up on special teams.
Like really hard field goals.
A 45-yard field goal is not like an easy one anymore.
And everything is about positioning and not turning the ball over.
And it was a chess match.
And Vrabel won it.
And Peyton not kicking a field goal to go up 10-0 was the biggest mistake of the day in either game.
Take the points.
We couldn't do anything.
Let me say this.
First of all, the mix of pistachios and red onion and Parmesan, Reggiano, virgin olive oil.
I mean, you wouldn't think it's a great marriage, but it really is better than chocolate and peanut butter.
And then the back is so charred and crispy.
I should review pizza.
Does anyone do that for Netflix?
I thought Peyton, I'm not going to say that he was happy with the Bo Nix injury.
Of course, it was a big bummer.
But I think eventually he convinced himself.
He's like, this could be my game.
This could be my hero.
I'm the hero.
You know, there's only a certain amount of games.
Maybe, you know, of more where the coach is remembered for the game more than the players.
I think Parcells winning Super Bowl 25, the Giants beating the Bills.
That was a great game plan.
It's Parcells being carried off.
But Peyton himself, when the Saints beat the Colts, right?
And this could have been another one.
Belichick's first Super Bowl in 01, I think, was a Belichick title.
Against the Rams, for sure.
So I think he thought, he's like, I'm going to do this.
And I actually believed him when he said, I'm not worried about Stidham.
I'm worried about everyone else.
That's like a kind of a great way to give your quarterback confidence and not piss off the rest of the team.
Um, but I was, I didn't deploy.
I had a lot of problems with his game plan, mainly that there was no trickery involved, because you would need it with with Stidham.
But I, you thought that was like a 90, 10 play, like going forward versus kicking.
I thought it was like close.
I thought it was 64.
I could just tell you what my texts were.
Yeah.
Um, because I think that was a little bit of a break because they had to measure first.
Right.
And I'm watching it going.
I pray to everything that they go for this.
And I have multiple texts to back it up because I thought if they went up to nothing, I didn't know if we were going to be able to come back, because their defense, both sides, both tackles, were already getting annihilated.
Right.
May look skittish.
You know he looked combination nervous and like he didn't think he had enough time.
Booty was just Patrick Sertan just took him out.
First time they threw deep to him, he was running side by side of them.
So it's like, all right, cross off that half of the field.
Right.
Um, and I just thought, and especially with the weather coming, it was like man, I don't, if it's 10, nothing.
I don't know if we can come back, but I think we can get a stop if it's fourth and one.
But if it's 14 nothing, it's it's lights out right, like don't you think that takes all the air out of it didn't guarantee they were going to score a td though.
No, i don't know.
I listen the we talk about this all the time in the pod, these fourth and one, and it's like situation says yeah, it says it's 72 percent of the time, whatever.
I think you throw that shit out in a game when there's a fucking blizzard, come in the second half and you have a chance to basically, just basically.
My thing is what's the final score of the game?
How many points do I need?
If I'm the Broncos, it's like, I just need to get to 14 to 17 and I win the game.
Give me the field goal.
I can go 10, nothing.
Yeah.
Let me try to get a turnover and sit.
So that was one mistake.
And then the other one was sit them in that third down, throwing the ball backwards.
Why are you, why are you putting them in the position to do anything like that?
Is your backup quarterback?
He hasn't played quarterback all year.
I mean, if a guy is, I mean, that's the punter falling, that punt return of falling down.
Like, what are you going to do?
I mean, he should, he should know to get rid of that ball.
By the way, can we talk about that one for a second?
There's a couple of plays, right?
Look, he probably deserves to turn it over because it was so awful, such an awful decision, such an awful play.
But why aren't they stopping that to review it?
They first called it an incomplete pass arm going forward and everybody has to stop.
It should have been a, if it wasn't the Patriots would have scored on a touchdown.
I can hold you on that.
By the way, I'm going to take a bite all year, all year.
They've been letting the play roll and not calling it dead.
And then deciding after whether it was a touchdown or not.
That was one of the only times this year.
I remember them just calling it dead, but it was like in the moment.
It was like, I think he threw it backwards.
Anyway, go ahead.
Right.
Let it go.
That's fine.
Let it go.
We learned that less than this year.
Could they review it?
Couldn't they review it?
Why is that a lot different?
If a guy throws a pass and it's batted down behind the line of scrimmage.
I know that's more obvious.
But couldn't this have been that?
Couldn't the ball have been going forward and it had been deflected backwards?
Should we have looked at it for like a minute?
Can't we just look at it?
It's the play of the game.
Oh, come on.
They barely... I thought they did, though.
I mean, it was clearly backwards.
It was backwards because it was deflected, though.
If it's deflected backwards, it's incomplete, isn't it?
Whatever.
It's fine.
Whatever.
I thought he threw it backwards.
Well, it seemed like the Pats were going to get screwed.
And then on second down May, does the QB draw that I was screaming for because you can see, with their defensive line was loaded one way and it was sitting there.
Right.
My son thought I was like, had, had a, it was like clairvoyant.
I was like, run it, run it.
And then he did the QB drug.
Cause you could see like Denver just didn't have a guy in the right spot.
But those two plays cost them the game, because once the second half started, they couldn't move the ball.
And they couldn't if I had the lead and the pats can't do anything, I'm just.
I'm doing what the Patriots did in the second half.
And this is why I wanted to talk about this.
Cause I, I thought Vrabel in the second half, he just managed the situation, right?
We have a lead.
We don't think that they can go 40 yards.
They're not going to be able to kick a field goal that's more than 37.
And we don't think they can make plays.
I'm not taking any chances.
They had that third down.
It was third and eight.
And May just rolled out and threw it out of bounds.
They didn't even go for it because he didn't want to commit a turnover.
I thought that was so smart.
I thought he did a great.
I didn't think he did a great job in the first half, but I thought second half he was great.
It's because he got the version of Jared Stidham that most of us thought he would get this time last week.
Right.
Like I was talking about, we're talking on the pregame show.
It's like when there's two games left, you could really convince yourself during the week by overanalyzing.
You know, analysis leads to paralysis.
That Stidham's not, you know, Stidham Knicks.
It's the same thing.
What was interesting though, is he had that 52 yard, 54 yard pass to Mims, whatever.
Right.
And then they call timeout.
And then I think to give him a trophy or something.
I don't know what they did, but then they yeah, exactly.
But then they score.
So, like Peyton's defense, he must've thought all right, this guy's got like more than one first down, left them the rest of the game and not that horrible pass play whatever.
Uh, drop forward that it was.
So he did.
I wrote in my notes.
Stidham kind of sucked them in a little bit, thinking that maybe he could do a little more.
I thought you made the key point on Peyton.
This was a hero ball performance by him.
Yep.
Like if you're actually just trying to win the game, take the points, go up to nothing.
Don't have Stidham do anything that could put himself in harm's way for the rest of the game, until we have proven that we can do a long drive.
Even the beginning of the third half or the second half, third quarter.
We have like a 10 minute drive to chew up the clock.
I'm going to say we like I'm on the team and we can't even get a touchdown out of it with the ball for 10 minutes.
Like we couldn't compete with complete 10 yard passes.
I thought their defense was excellent and we had a lot of trouble blocking them and really good.
Yeah, but look, the biggest asset either team had on offense was Drake May's legs in the second half, right.
You're going to scramble for first downs.
It looked for a second that Stidham could do the same thing.
But what bummed me out about Peyton is you guys had that flea flicker which kind of got you in field.
It did get you in field goal range.
Yeah, we missed the field goal, but it was a good play.
Yeah, who's the quarterback that hasn't taken a snap in two years versus who's the MVP caliber quarterback?
I think you need some flea flickers in there if you're Denver.
I think you need an end around for Mims or something.
Something to juice it up to create a missed tackle or something.
Because they had nothing at all in the second half.
Well, they were missing two receivers, which hurt them.
Because Franklin was scratched for the game.
Bryant got hurt during the game.
So all of a sudden, Humphreys out there in big spots.
I think I saw, was that Sky Moore out there?
There was a Moore.
Is that Sky Moore?
It is, right?
Yeah, I think it was Demi Moore.
It was Demi Moore.
It was a Moore.
I thought they ran out of guys.
It was a good matchup.
They couldn't run the ball.
I mean, the big thing for us is the run defense has been awesome.
I mean, the Patriots defense, I know they're going to take shape for the next week, and that's fine.
Your defense was good.
I like it in 2001 defense has given up 26 points in three games.
It's good.
They've given up two touchdowns.
One of which was this touchdown.
The first five minutes of the game.
The other was that one in Houston off the Drake may fumble or whatever it was where they had to go 10 yards.
Other than that, 26 points in three games and pretty, Close to dominant.
I think they had two bad plays in the last three weeks, right?
The one, the Mims play, right?
Mims play.
The Gonzalez one last week, like you said.
And I don't think any really against the Chargers.
No big ones.
Yeah.
Well, I thought Vrabel, it's funny because Belichick, when he flips stuff around in the 2000s and a lot of it was like defense game management, like just out thinking the other team good game plan strategy.
And Vrabel, ironically, the last game of Brady's career was that Tennessee game.
Right.
When Vrabel, like, outwitted Belichick.
And it was like, oh, my God, the pupil has become the teacher.
It was one of those.
And now Vrabel's the coach.
And this flipped in a year.
Jared Mayo last year, who's one of the worst coaches we've ever had in any Boston team.
And now we have this guy who I really felt like MacGyvered this game.
You know, i don't know.
I know you beat jared stidham, he you outwitted.
You outwit a five-year-old when you put a coin behind his ear and pull it out like, oh look what i got.
You're on the road in a blizzard and we didn't turn the ball over.
That's the key, right like you, i think your first half would you have 48 yards.
In the first half it was terrible.
They had about the same in the second half.
The difference is you guys were locked at seven.
You got the points and you didn't.
He didn't.
Then we got the third quarter, but for God's sakes, 28 quarterbacks beat Drake.
Maybe today, 28 beat him last week, maybe 20 the week before what it was going on.
It was the worst throwing game he's had since the Vegas game in week one.
I thought he missed seven open guys and throws that he's made all year.
Um, certain broke up that one bomb.
That was perfect.
He threw another bomb.
That was a good one.
But, um, He did have the naked bootleg to clinch the game.
And he called it himself, I guess, right?
Yeah, I sent it to you.
I thought McDaniels called it.
He didn't tell anyone on the team he was doing it.
If you watch the clip, Hunter Henry's blocking his defensive end out to try to keep him from coming toward the line of scrimmage.
And meanwhile, May's running toward the guy, and Henry's blocking him toward May, but May just...
But for the old school Pats fans, the pre-2001, that was like the famous Grogan play.
Yeah.
Which he used to do.
He most famously did in the 85 season when they went to the Super Bowl against the Jets.
He had like this old naked bootleg where he's like limping into the end zone.
And it was always like the Grogan play.
And then so he does that.
This team has pieces of that 85 team.
Did Grogan also have 10 completions in a win?
Did he also?
I mean, he probably did.
If you go back to Grogan's stats, they were not good.
I'm sorry.
You like bringing up Kobe in game seven against the Celtics.
What was he?
Seven for 28 or six for 24.
I hate to always bring it back to basketball.
You always do this.
I know.
Go ahead.
He wasn't great.
The defense carried him.
His legs made a couple of good plays. and then the naked bootleg.
But, you know, I said this last week.
It feels like the 96 season, Parcells' last season, when it was like oh, I guess we're in the Super Bowl.
I don't think anybody believed it.
I think Vrabel believed it.
But when you look back at who they beat, they beat three top five defenses.
I think it's the first team ever in playoff history to beat three top five.
He was terrible in the three games, though.
He wasn't terrible.
He had 15 sacks.
He was good in the second half of the Chargers game.
He threw three interceptions.
He took 15 sacks.
He wasn't terrible.
He had six fumbles.
I'm not going to offend him.
Okay, but you're going to go crazy about what he did against his three defenses.
Six fumbles, 15 sacks.
I'm just saying they beat three top five defenses.
Now they're playing another one.
18 points a game.
I didn't finish the first one.
The happiest you were when you were finishing the pizza.
Do I think this is the Super Bowl team?
It's hard for me to believe.
We had some in the 80s and 90s where it was like, wow, they made it?
I love how you're eating.
Like the...
The Titans rammed Super Bowl that year.
It's like, ah, the Titans are in?
This is weird.
But we don't usually have these.
Let's rank the worst Patriots Super Bowl teams.
I'll make it quick.
Number one is this year's team.
12-way tie for the number two.
That's all I'm going to say.
The defense is really good.
They are good.
And they've been with Milton Williams.
They've been really good this whole year.
So I think the recipe would be a little like 01, where you know they won the Rams game in 01, I think 2017.
Yeah.
It's probably a score like that.
Keep it down.
There's a really interesting Darnold element to this that I forgot to mention in the previous segment of.
The Patriots are basically the team that ended his Jets career.
He had that ghost game.
He never recovered from the ghost game.
Remember that?
When he said, go check.
And he was like, I was seeing ghosts out there.
And it became a week-long internet thing about how Sam Darnold was seeing ghosts.
And I don't know.
He gets revenge on that.
So here's the good fortune.
This is no good.
They're saying Kenneth Walker got run over by a snowmobile and he's listed as doubtful for the Super Bowl.
I mean, all good news for the Patriots always.
Not even snowing in Seattle.
Henschen and I were trying to figure out the highlights for the Patriots in this game like actual highlights.
Fourth and goal stop.
Stidham backward pass.
May draw touchdown.
The QB draw.
Fleetford to Hollins resulted in no points.
Leonard Taylor blocked the field goal.
I guess he tipped it.
A guy that I didn't know he was on the team because they just added him.
Literally didn't know he was on the team.
Um, The Patriots punter who was terrible today like, really like he would have been the villain of the game if they lost.
That's the guy that angles it out of bounds normally, right?
He was terrible.
I mean, he skunked one.
He was just so bad.
His last punt was a 33-yard punt with no return when they were in the 40.
And it was actually like he came up a little bit big.
So that was fun.
Gonzo's interception and then the naked bootleg.
It wasn't like a bevy of highlights.
So I do think.
Well, by the way, all those runs of the naked bootleg, all those the fourth, the one that they converted, that he might not have converted, ended up being the biggest run.
Wasn't it like you kicked the field goal after that.
So, and they have the eye in the sky.
We're never going to know what what gets reviewed and uh what doesn't, but still suck for the last two hours.
And if I'm a Bronco fan, um, I just feel like I would have won that game.
He's not the franchise quarterback.
Yeah.
I'm not like we don't have a QB controversy in August, but I think I would have.
I would have left that game thinking we win with Knicks.
Like just, we win.
Knicks gets us to, he uses his legs.
He probably rushes 10 times.
Like I think Drake was 10 for 65.
Right.
I think Knicks is probably like nine for 40.
Nine for 50 probably extends three drives with his legs and And he's a fourth quarter comeback quarterback.
You could say what you want about him.
He might have been able.
I did like, you know, you talk about what's cool about the weather.
Like Romo was two minutes left.
Patriot is like, better hurry up.
You're going to lose the wind in the fourth quarter.
I think they did a good job of figuring.
Even the sideline reporters were excellent today, I thought.
I thought that was the best sideline reporter performance in a while.
When Tracy Wolf said, watch the snow come into my face.
Now watch when I turn.
I was like, ah.
Yeah.
By the way, they're going to isolate that as what you just said for sure.
What do you mean?
I mean, they're going to make it filthy that people do that kind of thing.
Oh, you think I'm in trouble now with social media?
No, no.
Watch the snow come in my face.
It's fine.
It's good.
I just see what you think.
Oh, man.
Somebody's going to film a winter porn with my face in it.
You're cooked.
Damn it.
Blizzard Bill says, watch the snow.
Come, Blizzard.
So the defense gave up zero points in the last 55 minutes of the game.
Yeah.
I thought I wrote that in my notes.
The game was like Game of Thrones, because they kept telling us the snow was coming, and it was.
I've been rewatching Thrones.
It was like winter's coming.
Winter's coming.
And that was another reason why I can't believe Peyton didn't take the field goal.
In the first quarter, yeah.
They knew around halftime, snow was coming in for real when they did that little stop thing.
Anyway, things I have left.
I think Drake has to probably play two-thirds of a good game in the Super Bowl for them to have a chance to win.
Which in the regular season he would play 75 of an awesome game, but he would always start out slow.
I think they have to figure out how to start him faster and use his legs, get him involved in the, in the game with his legs.
And then for some reason that opens things up for him.
Stidham, is that it?
Do we ever see him start a playoff game again?
What more do you want?
Do you blame the blizzard or do you say it's the blizzard?
It was really hard to throw.
No, I blizzard made it hard to throw for sure.
But I don't we, I don't think we've ever seen anything like that where a backup comes in and immediately like like like, how nervous were you.
Like, Oh my God, if we get to, if they do get to 10 or 14 to 17, we're kind of done.
Like, I think the agreement with the defense would have been like, Just let me get 23 points.
Just stop them from getting 23.
Like, no, you needed less than half of that.
And still, and then just like nothing the rest of the way.
It was actually shocking.
Went from this makes sense to this makes, I don't even know what I'm watching anymore.
So you don't think Stidham's earned itself a $25 million contract?
No, no.
I think CBS needs to offer Tomlin like $50 million a year to join their halftime show.
Really?
Really.
I don't know if you saw the halftime show.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's rough.
I would try to get Tom on.
Sertan, I think, was the only Broncos winner out of that game.
We tested him once, and it was like, no more.
He was great early on.
No, thank you.
You never see a D-back have his head turned, running for 10 yards with his head turned, which almost definitely calls off the pass interference if you do that.
Pats ran the ball, if you include the Drake-May scrambles, 38 for 141.
And I think the Rams unlocked a little bit of a running blueprint with the Seahawks because I thought they were, over and over again, able to gash them in the middle and move the ball.
So we'll see if that's a thing.
So we have two weeks now to think of the Super Bowl.
Have you gotten sad yet that the NFL season's almost over or more sad that the Patriots are back?
I don't know.
It's very, very hard for me to separate those two.
But I don't like that I can't make a two-team teaser anymore.
I guess I could use the total and the line.
And I don't really love the Super Bowl.
You're stuck at someone's house.
You watch.
You got your wife's friend's dumb husband asking you what the spread is every four minutes.
Can you put a bet in for me?
Yeah.
Can I bet one side?
You guys want to bet this?
Yeah.
I don't know how this works.
Can I bet the Rams?
Can I bet the Seahawks and the Patriots?
Then I won't lose, right?
Oh, geez.
Just killed me.
So, yeah, this isn't the best.
We'll take a break for the podcast.
We'll keep going here on Netflix.
Let's guess the line.
All right.
I haven't seen it.
I don't know what it is.
I swear I haven't.
Now, let me just, let me set.
Can I set the stage?
Can I build?
Build some heat here?
Yeah, build some drama.
All right.
So where are we?
Okay, so after 21 weeks, you're up 11 to 10.
You have the lead.
I have an opportunity to tie.
Tiebreaker is Zoe Simmons, takes penalty kicks on us for three and a half hours until one of us gets lucky and blocks one.
Or you could win it right here.
Even a tie wins it for you.
Let's see what happens.
I have the Seahawks. favored in Super Bowl LX by four points.
It's going to be hard for me to win now.
What did you guess?
You didn't even tell me.
Did you guess four?
I guessed four.
You win.
You're off the hook, Zoe.
The actual line...
I almost went four and a half.
Well, that would have won, too.
Seahawks minus four and a half, over under 46 and a half.
Vegas zone.
Yep.
Wow, won another year.
You did it again.
Now I get to hit you with a rose of pizza.
A hard rose of pizza crust.
It is damn good.
I'm sending the rest to you.
That looked really good.
Well, I had some other stuff I wanted to hit with you before Parent Corner.
Mm-hmm.
A new coach got hired for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and it was Mike McCarthy who was your coach on the Cowboys for a few years.
Right.
Am I wrong thinking that now he's an underrated hire, Mike McCarthy?
No, I don't think you're wrong.
I think there's two ways to look at this, right?
Compare it to Mike Tomlin.
Maybe not better.
Maybe in ways a little worse.
But compared to the pool of coaches that was available, I think he's good.
I think he's solid.
I think it's weird to take a chance on these 35-year-olds.
I know you don't want to sign old guys to five-year deals, but I think to get a steady guy in there it's going to be better than rolling the dice, which the Steelers don't do anyway.
20 coaches have 10 plus playoff wins.
Yeah.
And only four of them started coaching this century.
Mike McCarthy, Harbaugh, Sean Payton, Sean McVay.
His numbers are very similar to Harbaugh.
So there's a lot of people who have the Harbaugh, love the Harbaugh hired.
So McCarthy was 174 and 112, 11, 11, the playoffs and won a Superbowl.
Harbaugh was 180 and 113.
It's almost exact.
13 and 11 in the playoffs and won a Super Bowl.
Peyton is now 184 and 108, 11 and 10 in the playoffs, 1 and 0 in the Super Bowl.
And Tomlin's 193 and 114, 8 and 12 in the playoffs, won a Super Bowl.
So if you just covered those four guys up, you wouldn't know who was who.
And yet everyone's like, Oh, John horrible restoring giant.
It's like, he was about to get fired before Lamar became Lamar.
McCarthy was on the Packers kicking ass with Aaron Rogers.
And then eventually it became, Oh, it's only because he had Aaron Rogers.
Like, why isn't that what we say about John Harbaugh?
Yeah, I think that comparison is good.
Yeah, it's Giants fans just getting excited.
I think I will say this.
If he brings Rodgers in, not no personal bias.
I know that's impossible to think, but I don't think that's a step forward.
Right.
If he's guaranteed to have to bring Rodgers in McCarthy.
I think that's a couple more years of just nothingness.
It's a tough one.
Well, I think it seems like some of the assistants will get poached, because there's still some jobs left.
Yeah.
Hilariously, nobody wants the Browns job, which I thought was funny.
A couple of mailbag questions.
This came from Jack in Saskatchewan.
He suggests a new manifesto rule.
Can you picture the QB holding the trophy?
The Malcolm Gladwell blink test for when you're picking the Super Bowl.
Seattle has the best shot.
Picture Sam Darnold holding a trophy with confetti coming down.
Can you see it?
I thought that was pretty interesting.
Sam Darnold kind of looks like Theon Lovejoy.
Ooh.
We really are watching this game.
Yeah, I'm really getting in on Thrones.
But I was trying to think of most unlikely guy who held the trophy.
It was probably Dilfer, right?
Yeah, I think so.
They're like, wow, Dilfer won the Super Bowl.
What just happened?
Doug Williams.
Yeah, those are some weird ones.
I think Dilfer is probably number one for me.
But yeah, so I don't know.
I can see both of them holding it.
I can see maybe, his wife baking cookies the whole time, handing them out while the trophy's going around.
I can see both.
The Seahawks fan named Chris was talking with his friend Ryan about signature celebration dances they would do if they're an NFL player.
That would be the funniest.
And they decided it would be the tuck dance that Buffalo Bill did in Silence of the Lambs.
And then we're wondering if somebody could do that.
And would they get a penalty?
So you'd have to like kind of push, push stuff in and do and do this.
Right.
Maybe put the football in.
I feel like it would be a 15 yarder.
Yeah, I think so.
You think that's taunting?
You think that's something the sidelines should look at?
I think that'd be taunting.
Yeah, you do the tough dance.
Yeah, I think Joe Buck wouldn't like that.
Simon in Australia said that I almost threw a no-hitter with my O.J.
Simpson, Peyton Manning comp.
But then when I said the what car would he be driving?
I didn't make the white Bronco joke that was sitting there.
Yeah, right.
Denver.
Yeah, with Peyton.
It's all right.
He compared it to Andres Galarraga's perfect game.
That's going great.
Blake in Nebraska wants to know, is it time to discuss Josh Allen and the Ewing theory?
Hmm.
Wait a minute.
How so?
He does fit all the parameters.
Media loves him.
He's considered to be one of the best guys in the league.
He's never actually won anything.
So what would have to happen is he would have to have some sort of injury next year.
The backup would have to come in and then basically do Tom Brady in 2001.
Listen, he is on the Ewing theory watch list, I think is fair to say.
Well, yeah, that's the big part of the Ewing theory, the actual doing it part of it.
He actually doing it, but I think he is definitely a candidate.
Uh, Peter Krause was saying how Rams Pat Superbowl would be an uncanny um 2001 kind of doppelganger thing where the Rams would be the favorite.
But that didn't happen.
So I don't know if the, I don't know if the Seahawks thing is the same way.
I got to tell you, I do think this Seahawks, I think like we'll break Netflix records.
If the Pat's, lose the super bowl to the Seahawks.
And we're on immediately afterwards.
I think that's going to be like, you think that'll be stranger thing.
That'll be, that'll be like six Chappelle specials lined up back to back.
Like, so if you love the ringer, ultimately it's good for the ringer.
You should root for your team to lose.
I think I'll eat a Rosa pizza for Pat's a win.
Oh, do it.
I'll just pour some extra gluten.
February 9th is long enough.
Seth Morgan sent me this email before the game today.
He said he went to a strip mall dive bar in Littleton kind of place where only three guys are at the bar talking sports.
Talked about the Broncos and somebody said Stidham will be an even more potent threat than Knicks because there's no tape on him.
The lack of tape will lead to a 25% Stidham advantage.
And if he's 20 worse, with the 25 advantage, that might actually give the Broncos an extra 5 chance to win the Super Bowl.
Therefore, we are better off with him.
Go Broncos.
And then he said, shout out to the Littleton, Colorado, Colorado bar.
OK, listen, that's the kind of thing that happens in a bar.
I can imagine the Patriots defense like he's throwing it forward or backwards.
What are we supposed to do?
There's no tape on this guy.
He's right handed.
What are we supposed to?
Come on, guys.
We had no heads up.
He told me he was left handed.
Let's just let it go.
Tim from Westfield, Massachusetts, wants to know if Stefan Diggs can be called the QB whisperer.
Because Kirk Cousins, Josh Allen, CJ Stroud, all of them blossomed when he was there.
I guess today wasn't the day to ask that one.
I like it.
He's definitely a whisper of something because I think he's on pace for four kids in the last year.
We call him a lot of things, yeah.
He's whispering something.
You think it's because of the easy schedule?
I haven't seen the women, but being able to impregnate them.
If the schedule was harder, it would be tougher.
Yeah.
Miles from Austin via Boston, thinks the stars have aligned for the Pats to be a generational.
Nobody believes in us team.
Because he sent this before the game.
Bad schedule.
Are we sure Drake Mays good?
They're so lucky.
The Ram Seahawks Super Bowl just happened.
I am saying there's a lot of nobody believes in us.
You didn't say it for Denver, though.
That would have been a time to say.
I thought that was going to bite you in the ass for not labeling the Broncos.
And nobody believes in us.
The straight up pick was Broncos.
I thought that line was too high.
The plus one half.
But I thought the Pats were going to be a similar thing here.
Here's a question for you from Connor from Minneapolis.
Hit it, Connor.
What is it?
Who was Sal rooting for in Super Bowl L2, a.k.a.
Super Bowl 52?
I imagine him being in a real bind, knowing that the plurable Eagles would win or that he'd have to go on the pod and listen to you go on and on about the greatness of Brady.
Which team was a bigger nightmare to win for you?
I got to tell you, Connor, and thanks for the question.
Really, like eight out of the last 10, 15 out of the last 20 Super Bowls, I'm just a basket case.
I don't know who to root for.
Eagles, I had a problem with every play in the Eagles-Patriots game.
Same with Patriots-Giants.
I didn't want the Patriots to go undefeated.
Definitely didn't want the Giants to win.
Yeah, it's disgusting.
They had knocked the Cowboys out in one of those years.
So yeah, this is why this is kind of like the last good week of football for me.
But you like Seattle, though.
You'll just go all in on Seattle.
You'll do some sort of parlay with Seattle Moneyline with some sort of adjusted under or something.
Ruben Silva said in the Sunday Night Pod, we wondered what rule the NFL would change to help Josh Allen make or win the Super Bowl.
We forgot.
The NFL has already changed a rule for Josh Allen.
Overtime.
After the 13 seconds game.
Right.
They changed the overtime rules.
So that is fair.
Right.
Last email read from Bill.
He said listen to you and Cousin Sal discuss the generational disappointment being shared by Bill's fans and their children.
As an Atlanta native.
I'm 47, part of the first generation to grow up as an Atlanta sports fan and pass it down.
Um, he said, you mentioned age nine to 10 as being the critical age for sports disappointment.
Consider the nine-year-old that grew up in Atlanta and experienced 28 to three.
I have no idea how that will warp them.
My nine-year-old cried for 45 minutes in his Matt Ryan Jersey, while my youngest proclaimed he's not waking up.
Obviously I've saved the video for his wedding.
That has to shape a child's character.
And then he says this small group of Falcons fans are now around 18 years old and will probably have to be studied and monitored.
It's a really interesting one.
So you think they're just permanently damaged?
Yeah, and these people are going into the world, right?
They've graduated high school at 18.
They're going to probably, yeah, this September maybe.
They just don't trust anybody?
Yeah, it's a mess.
It's not funny.
It really isn't funny what we do to our kids.
I mean, it's not fun what you do to them either.
Just winner after winner.
By the way, I'm looking at this.
Mike McDonald arrested for public urination on a playground an hour ago.
He was by a sandbox.
He sentenced to three weeks in county jail.
Tough break again.
Good for the Patriots.
Listen, the night's not over.
There was a rumor today on Twitter that got like two million retweets or something, where the guy said that Bo Nix actually got hurt in the locker room.
I saw that nonsense.
That had to be fake, right?
Well, we saw him limping around before, right?
In the postgame interview and everything.
So Seahawks minus four and a half, the over under is 46 and a half.
That seems high.
Um, and then futures Darnold plus one 30 for MVP.
Drake may plus two 30 and JSN is five to one, which was when we talked about two weeks ago when he was like 18 to one for Superbowl MVP.
And if, by the way, who wins the MV, that was the Superbowl today.
Seahawks Rams, who would have won the MVP?
Oh, I would argue JSN.
Yeah, I think so.
It's a tough one.
It would have been like a split vote, right?
Right, right, right.
The fucking one hand catch.
He was amazing.
Maybe the guy who taunted.
That was a pretty big play.
Well, with the way the Patriots have been playing, if they won.
No, it's gotta be.
Maybe he was five to one last Saturday.
It could honestly be like Christian Gonzalez at 201 getting two picks or something.
It might be one of those.
Who was the guy who won in your last Dallas one?
Larry Brown.
Larry Brown got a big deal with the Raiders after that.
Yeah.
And then, uh, not really a lot of stuff on.
We'll have a lot of time to talk about this.
Yeah.
Do you like Kenneth Walker?
Wow.
His rushing 80 plus rushing yards.
Kenneth Walker is minus one Oh two.
They have those under on that.
Now that's the whole line, I guess.
Oh, wow.
Maybe is, uh, I'm just doing that for you.
40 plus rushing yards plus 174.
Yeah, it was so easy today.
House was leaning on that.
I'm like, yeah, that's such a sexy pick, Drake, man.
He missed it last week, though, his over yardage total.
But once he got like in the 60s, like, all right, no kneel downs are going to bring this under.
He's good.
Well, that was the old Mahomes thing we used to talk about every year.
Right.
That they use the legs more in the playoffs.
All right.
Parent corner.
What do you got?
All right.
So my son, Jack, is a junior in high school.
He's going to be 18 in a couple of weeks.
And I told you he loves the Steelers basically because of Heinz Ketchup.
He loved Heinz Ketchup when he was young.
And then they played at Heinz Field for like a year before they change it to Accuture.
And then anyway, he took he's the he's a Steelers fan.
So I mentioned that there's a local bar slash restaurant that he goes.
He wears his jerseys and his terrible towels and he's become friends with these 50-year-old men and women.
So when they lost to the Texans a couple Mondays ago, he was bummed out and he didn't come back with any stories.
We were doing the podcast, right?
We did an extra one that day.
Um, i was like hey you, okay.
Yeah, it sucks, it sucks, it sucks.
So the other day, fast forward just to like three days ago, we're on the phone with archie my oldest is in college and we put him on speakerphone and he's talking to the whole family and uh, jack comes in and archie's like hey, i didn't talk to you, sorry about the stealers, and jack, it's quirky kid, i'm gonna say it that way, he's very quirky kid.
And he says oh, i have a story about that.
Like uh-oh, here we go, buckle in.
He's like There was a couple when I was over at the bar, sitting next to this table, and I sit with all these strangers who have become my friends.
But then there was another table with Steelers fans that we haven't seen before.
And someone delivered French fries to their table.
And one guy at our table said, all right, the fries are here.
Everybody go in.
And I thought he was serious.
And I grabbed the French fryer from this woman.
And I started eating it and she's like, Oh, you're nasty.
Those are my fries though.
You're nasty.
And then the guy was mad at me and he was like pointing at me and I didn't know what to do.
So I said, okay, I'll give you $20, $20.
And then, you know, and they were still calling me nasty.
And then my friend at the table is like 55 year old guy says Oh, You don't know what you're talking about.
And he ends up giving the guy the finger and then the guy gives him the finger.
And then the guy punched him in the face twice.
And I took my ginger ale and threw it in the guy's face.
And then they got thrown out.
And I'm like, what the fuck?
What is this?
Well, this is 10 days later.
Where is this coming from?
You got in a bar fight, kid?
You're 17 years old.
You're throwing ginger ale on people.
What's going on?
And Archie's just dying, just dying, laughing.
And my wife is like, are you kidding me?
This is what we're letting go on here.
He can't go anymore at night.
I was like, did you get thrown out of the bar?
He's like, well, I don't know my status, but I think I'm going to be all right.
It was the last game of the year.
So we're going to see next year.
So this is, this is lunacy though.
That's the story of the year.
He threw his ginger ale on the guy's face.
His friend got punched in the face twice.
Oh my God.
So Jack goes over to the table and just takes a French fry.
Just grabbed the fry.
He thought it was a community fry for the, Oh, where fans, your fans took it that personally.
Yeah.
The woman was like really pissed off.
So, um, and they were like yelling at the fan.
They were not from in town.
They're like, don't come back.
Don't come back here again.
They said to the woman in our hospital.
So, uh, yeah, we may need a new place for a Jack to watch dealers games next year.
Probably the basement.
I can't believe that.
Everyone in your family to get into a bar fight.
Clearly I would have picked Harrison first.
Harrison.
It's coming for sure.
He's going to step it up.
He would have come over and like punch the guy in the nuts.
Um, my parent corner.
So my son's at that age where we're just rewatching all these great movies from the past.
Yeah.
And we've done like.
We did seven earlier in the week and he watched fight club and he now he wants to watch heat and he's just like.
He's basically like just ripping off the classics and I get to relive the classics through him and all the, all the swerves.
Like he didn't know there's the quote unquote seven big turn that happens.
Um, so we haven't done the mafia ones yet.
Uh, and that there's some pressure on some of the ones that are coming.
Cause I feel like, and he's like the right ones so far.
And this is right around the age when you really get into movies.
But There are a couple that I'm going to get nervous that, if he doesn't like them, I'm going to really be upset about as upset as anything.
Like if we watch the Godfather and he's like, ah, it was slow.
Yeah.
Or if he watches, or if he watches if we watch heat, and he's like man.
Why hasn't anything happened since the bank shootout?
I'm just going to be like, right.
So I don't know.
There's a lot of pressure here with reliving these.
You shut your mouth and tell me your apex mountain right now.
Who does Vincent Hayden remind you of?
So you got Goodfellas, you got Casino, you got Departed.
Yeah, we're doing all of those.
We've done everything.
He even watched Devil Wears Prada with my wife.
Rounders, Swingers, all the town, all the classics.
But for the mobster ones, I wonder what the sequence is.
Do you show them Godfather first and then the more contemporary?
That's what I was thinking about that.
So the sequence, I think, is one and two.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think he moved to Scarface, almost like a sorbet.
Yeah.
Then Goodfellas, which he's seen, but we'll watch again.
And then Casino.
So he's seen Brock's Tale and he's seen Goodfellas.
He loved those.
He loved those.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I am worried there's going to be one that he's going to shit on and then we're going to have some real tension.
But every time I think I run out of reasons why it was great to have kids.
Then it's like you get to relive all the great movies with them and you're just running it back.
And you have amnesia for... what you experienced the first time you watched it and you get to live through it through them so that's been fun there's nothing you can do about the the slowness of some of these movies though there's just nothing you could do we talked about rocky too and like it's like and even rocky like oh man three one is a really hard one rock rocky's one's hard three is perfect because there's three fights right and they kind of get right into each one of them you know but then when you go two and one cinematically Whatever, nicer.
But if you've got a 16, 17, 18-year-old, they may not appreciate it.
Yeah, my wife's been gone for... Oh, yeah.
She went away, so it's me and Ben.
So we're actually hanging.
I'm starting to see the finish line, because he's going to college next year and then then that's it.
You were the genius with having the extra kid.
Not so fast.
That was a great move.
That was like signing Jared Stidham to the backup quarterback deal.
Wait a minute.
Just in case you need a really good backup.
Not going to be a first down for the last four years.
That was a great one.
The other thing we did last night was we watched UFC at the same time as the Netflix build and climb.
And also self-exposed was on.
So I had the three TVs and it was, like just randomly, one of the more fun, like oh my God, I can't believe these three things are all happening at the same time.
The building thing.
I actually think was underrated as one of the craziest things um things I've.
I think it was the craziest thing I've watched that I didn't know was going to be crazy since that David plane special.
Oh yeah.
He was fucking with all the celebrities, which remember how everybody went nuts when that happened.
Then he never did it again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but I couldn't believe it.
And there was a couple like, what are you afraid of heights?
Cause Oh God.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm, I got, I'm afraid to share in like two minutes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm afraid of heights.
I didn't used to be, but, uh, over the course of the century.
And there was a couple where he's reaching back.
Yeah.
Where it was like the overhang.
So you have to reach back and then pull yourself up where you're just like, this guy's going to die.
Some weird stuff.
He had to step into like Oh, that looks complicated to have to get your foot out of, maybe if you, if you can't, but he was so comfortable with Just like, I'm going to take a break and sit on this ledge.
And it's like, there's wind.
I just didn't understand what I was watching.
I almost broke my brain.
It's great because it's not, first of all, we had, we grew up with Evel Knievel, right?
But there's a lot of buildup for that.
And then it's over in a couple of seconds.
Right.
But.
But it's pretty cool if he makes it.
If he almost doesn't make and he breaks every bone in his body.
Short of that, they've had, like trapeze artists walk across a tightrope, I think, for like 20 minutes or so.
But that's kind of the same thing over and over.
I think scaling a building you get to see different weird facade like it's, it's.
It was extra, extra gnarly, I thought for sure.
Well, one of the crazy things was there was people on certain floors like taking pictures and waving to him.
And it was like I was thinking.
I was thinking, if you were there, you're the same person who almost ended Jimmy's wedding when the wedding cake was coming out.
Cause you saw this chance to push the cake and the baby doll.
And I was thinking like that guy.
He's climbing up and you just throw yourself into the window to see if you can rattle him.
David Blaine.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it would be attempted murder.
I think that's murder, yeah.
Jimmy sent me to New York when David Blaine was in that tank.
Remember he was in a tank for four days?
Yeah.
And he's like, walk up to him with a hammer.
I'm like, all right, this kind of sucks.
Yeah, I will.
I'm not going to.
I can't break it.
I think that's a felony.
That's bad.
Yeah.
When I walked up to him, we kind of know Blaine a little, to our crazy friend Brad somehow.
And he's like, no, no.
Right.
Like that would have been it.
But yeah, this climbing thing, I don't know that he's one of the greatest athletes.
Everyone's got to make that, that great jump now that he's the greatest athlete we've ever seen.
You're going to put, you're going to throw them in there.
I just had more questions than answers.
Like my son was like what happens if he runs out of?
He had that special powder like that stick and powder.
He had that little satchel in his back pocket.
It's like, what happens if he's like, oh shit, I didn't bring enough powder.
Yeah.
And now you're like only four fifths up the wall.
And then when he got on the top, which was amazing, and he was just standing there and he was so comfortable.
Yeah.
Just like being like, Hey, look at you.
I was like having an absolute stroke.
I couldn't handle it.
I was like, and they were doing these, like, I just couldn't handle it.
And then it's like, how's he going to get back down?
Oh, this will be easy.
He's just going to rappel down.
That seemed terrifying.
Every piece of it seemed terrifying.
Yeah.
We had a zip.
Do you ever go zip lining?
I have.
Yeah.
I don't know why I did it.
We went when the kids had a game in Hawaii.
You know, it was in Hawaii and the zip lining sucks.
That was bad for me.
I was like, I'm never doing this again.
But worse off, there was this bridge that kind of like shook back and forth when you walk past it.
I laid on that bridge for 40 minutes because I could not move.
Like, there's no way it's going to break.
But I'm like, I'm not moving.
I'm not going forward.
I'm not going back.
I don't know how people do this.
Did you think he was going to have like a little backpack on?
That would have been a parachute if you fell.
You would think, right?
You see all these like safety nets or safety something, but some harness, nothing.
I thought it was incredible.
When we were kids, I remember somebody tried to climb the World Trade Center or Empire State one of those in New York on Wide World of Sports.
And I don't remember watching it live, but when they would do the anniversary shows for world of sports they would always show it was like George Willis or name like that.
Um, and he would, he climbed up the world trade center and like, this is crazy.
He didn't have permits to do this.
And that seemed nuts.
I think all of this, I don't understand.
I don't understand why somebody would want to do this.
Yeah.
How somebody could be that calm.
Like, it's almost like, is this the right use of this person?
If this person is this calm with this much, how scary this is.
It's almost like Good Will Hunting.
And it's like, Will Hunting, you should actually work for NASA.
You're too fucking smart.
This guy, should he be flying the scariest planes we have?
Or do we have to teach him to be a pilot?
What skills could he add that would be better than just climbing a building?
The parkour guys are especially insane.
And I would think that you would be nervous that Ben was going to become one of them.
He was on his way for a second.
Well, yes.
I was relieved that Ben was scared watching this guy last night.
I was kind of looking over.
My worst nightmare would have been like, this looks so fucking cool.
I'm so jealous.
No, don't do this.
So if he had just fallen, would they have cut the feed?
I'm sure they had some kind of plan for it.
Yeah, they couldn't just show that.
That would be bad times.
I think, I think they'd have to, I'm like getting queasy thinking about it now.
I can't believe.
So we had that.
And then UFC.
We had Gaethje going against Patty and um, it just turned in and you had the knockout plus 70, but um, it was just an absolute slugfest that seemed like it was going to end every round.
It didn't.
And it reminded me a little of the first Leonard Duran fight where Patty was just trying to fight him and was like no no, I can beat this guy standing up.
And Gaethje, yet again, I don't know how many years now we've been doing it with him.
I think he's 38 now.
I would love to.
And we had this with- He's like Matthew Stafford.
Gotti.
Yeah, he is.
He's going to be a quarterback for the Rams next year.
Remember Gotti and Ward?
You're like, oh, I just wish we could watch these guys fight forever.
I want them to protect Gaethje's brain because he takes so many shots now.
I don't even want to know what that looks like now.
But that's a guy I want to watch for the next decade because-
He just brings it every single time.
It was a little like Cesar Chavez near the end where it was almost like the blows.
His brain wasn't even bouncing back and forth anymore when he took a blow.
It seemed like at the tail end he got hurt.
Yeah.
The other thing that was interesting was the heavyweight fight was bad.
And just like what a bad situation the heavyweight division is in compared to where I felt like we were when I started watching it.
Derek Lewis just holding, I mean, is he still in that ring holding himself like that?
That was, that was scary shit too.
Number five against number eight.
And it was awful.
So I don't.
I don't know if if like, giant people just aren't doing MMA anymore or what was going on, but it was.
It was interesting, paramount weekend.
Cause they had the boxing on Friday and they're clearly trying to like play the SmackDown, but it was weird not to pay for a UFC pay-per-view.
I know.
I know.
They had a few more ads.
This is unparamount.
Yeah, exactly.
It's not... The way they show the odds is different now.
We don't have to get into it, but they've aligned with somebody differently.
But anyway, yeah, I love not paying.
A lot of people said this is the first time I'm going to buy.
I'm legitimately watching a pay-per-view because everyone steals for years and years and years.
And yet, I thought the... the climb in the building was better.
Yeah.
The Celtics were fucking around with the Chicago Bulls game.
It would have been a nice back-to-back.
I was just watching the building guy have a heart attack.
Do you think you could watch that?
Do you think you could keep watching?
They do that once a month and the buildings just get taller and taller.
Is there more than a I think the next one would have to be not a building.
I think it would have to be some sort of summit, right?
Yeah.
It'd have to be some, or some sort of mountain that you're not supposed to climb.
Right.
Where you have to go like slice the loan.
Yeah.
Anything else you want to hit?
Yeah, I did a couple of the, first of all, I loved you and mad dog.
It's, it's the best one he's on.
Yes.
And, uh, can I give you my favorite exchange between the two of you?
I'll attempt to do both voices.
I can probably guess what it is.
I've never done this before.
I was like, all right, here we go.
This first one's going to be you.
All right, man, Doug, let's talk about the top 10 quarterbacks of all time.
I think Elway is in there.
Two Super Bowl wins, but he also had some stinker playoff games.
What's your take on Elway?
Well, first of all, that is an excellent, excellent job by you, Bill.
You remember that John Elway's playoff games weren't always great.
And he, listen, he wasn't always Johnny Unitas out there.
So excellent job by you.
You did your homework.
Excellent job.
And I was trying not to laugh.
I could hear you laugh.
We love Mad Dog so much.
He was great.
We have him on and I didn't prep him for anything.
And within a second, he's like, well, Otto Graham, 1955.
And he just is like banging out.
1955 for reference. that was good.
All right.
Well yeah, just to have a plug here, Sal super squares on splash giving out 25000 and prizes 10000 to the winner of a grand prize, completely free to enter.
Go to splash boardscom.
And also I'm doing a, a new contest around bad beats.
Send me a screenshot of your bad beat on Twitter and that's it.
Every bad beat gets a free play on splash.
There you go.
Um, and we didn't talk about the terrible uh murder of Alex pretty in in Minnesota, but I wanted to mention how awful that was.
And we tried on this podcast, try to steer it towards sports and uh, and be a place that you know is a little bit of a distraction area.
And if you want some of the other stuff, go there.
I thought that was horrible.
I remember when we were uh, we were kids growing up reading about like Kent state and things like that.
You're like, man, how did they let that happen?
And this felt like that.
And I just don't know how we got to this spot.
So I wanted to mention that.
I thought I was horrified about what happened.
I don't want to love everyone in Minnesota.
Absolutely.
I'm going to shove pizza in my mouth so I don't say anything wrong.
I think Charles Barkley did a good job summing it up.
That was terrible.
I don't know what we're trying to accomplish in 2026, but I don't like it.
That's it for the podcast.
Sal, we're going live on Sunday night.
We're going to be doing Super Bowl props live on Sunday night.
Probably like seven, maybe like six o'clock Pacific time range.
Whatever you want.
I'll have the pizza ready for both of us.
Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo and Chris behind the scenes for helping us out.
I'm going to be back on Tuesday on this podcast.
Rewatchables launches tomorrow on Netflix.
Those on Spotify as well.
We have Zodiac.
What do you think was longer, the movie or the podcast?
The Rewatchables.
157 minutes.
Oh, man, you went past two and a half hours.
I'll go.
I'll go.
The movie.
Was it close?
Podcast was like 250.
I think we went 20 minutes longer.
Your re-apex is just unstoppable.
Well, we had to solve.
We solved the Zodiac murder as well.
Oh, you did?
Okay.
Yeah, that was another great thing.
Yeah, we solved it.
So that was good.
Anyway, that's coming Monday.
It will be on Netflix as well as Spotify as well.
Sal, as always, good job on you.
Good job on you, buddy.
See you on Tuesday.
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