Pardon My Take - Belichick Out In New England, Nick Saban Talk With Andy Staples, Aaron Schatz On Wild Card Weekend + Picks & Preview

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

Bill Belichick is out in New England and Hank is sad. We talk about the exit, his legacy and where he'll go next (00:00:00-00:27:47). We also talk about the wild 2 days that saw Pete Carroll, Nick Saban, and Belichick all leave their jobs (00:27:47-00:32:40). Super Wild Card Weekend picks and preview for every game Saturday and Sunday (00:32:40-01:14:11). Andy Staples joins the show to talk about Nick Saban's retirement, best Nick Saban memories, and who's going to take the job next (01:14:11-01:47:04). Aaron Schatz from FTN Fantasy joins the show to talk about DVOA, which he invented, and how it applies to teams in the playoffs. Weaknesses and strengths for every team and who he thinks is over achieving and under achieving (01:47:04-02:19:33). We then finish with Fyre Fest of the week (02:19:33-02:29:10).You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/PardonMyTake

Hey, part of my take listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen, add free on Amazon Music. On today's part of my take, we have a packed, packed show. All of the coaches have been fired or retired. So we're going to talk about Bill Bellachek, Pete Carroll. We have Andy Staples on to talk about Nick Sabin, who's going to get that job, his legacy, why he was the best college football coach of all time.

We also have a great interview with Aaron Schatz, the inventor of DVOA. We finally got to the bottom of what DVOA is and he talked about the playoff picture, what teams he thinks are overperforming, underperforming, what units you should be looking out for, especially when you're betting this weekend. We're gonna preview every game, and then we'll finish with Fire Fest. It is a great time to be alive as a sports podcaster. Lot to talk about.

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Plus you get free shipping just go to the farmers dog calm slash PMT to get 50% off That's the farmers dog calm slash PMT. Okay, let's go. No place to hang out or washing. And then I can't live all on your songs. Oh, no, we're gonna rock it down too. E-L-E-L-S-R-E-K-I-R-N-U. And then we'll take it higher. Oh, we're gonna rock it down too. E-L-E-S-R-E-K-I-R-N-U. It's pardoning my take.

There's an abyssal support. E-L-E-K-I-R-N-U. Welcome to part of my take today is fria January 12th and bill bell check has been fired Pete Carroll has been fired Nick Sabin has retired. There are a lot of really good coaches available out there. A lot of really good coaches with not a lot to do. It's that was shocking. The fact that it happened bang bang bang. It was

Pete Carroll. Last time we talked to you guys was on Wednesday, but Pete Carroll got fired on Wednesday morning. Nick Saban retired Wednesday night. Bill Bellichick got fired on Thursday morning. Just these things happen in three. Three of, well, Nick Saban's the best college coach of all time. Yes. Bill Bellichick's the best NFL coach of all time. Yes. And Pete Carroll's probably a top 15 football coach of all time. Maybe even top 10. I'd say maybe he's probably top 20 college coach of all time. Yes. And Pete Carroll's probably a top 15 football coach of all time, maybe even top 10.

I'd say maybe he's probably top 20 college coach of all time and top 20 NFL coach of all time. He's best duel. He's 14 all time in NFL wins. He's got two national titles in college football. Yeah. I would say if you like put it all together, Pete Carroll has an argument for being a top 10 football

coach of all time. Yeah. And Ron Rivera-Fire, that's a Mount Rushmore of coaches right there. I'll tell you what. So, Henry, Hank was getting on us, PFT, because he thought that the fake news media, ourselves, Mike Florio, as we've been reporting consistently all year. As we were reporting consistently, he was like, well, black Monday happened and Bill Bouchek still, the coach of the New England Patriots and he was kinda needling us like, hey, you guys are wrong.

I'm not gonna ask Hank for an apology, but it wouldn't hurt to say you were right. Yeah, just once. No, all I did was ask when it was gonna happen. You guys didn't have an answer for me. Well, we said Thursday morning, I think. We don't know the predictions. We said at some point this week.

Yeah, I gotta say when I woke up in the morning on Thursday mornings, I get up at six or in the morning and I think I fired it like seven in the morning on Easter at the standard time. I saw it and then I just sat and looked at my phone waiting for Hank to wake up. Yeah, I was like, I need to ask the wake up. Yeah, what does Bella check do now? I was setting up the notification cause. He has to wake up. Yeah.

What does Bella check do now? I was just asking Jake before we started taping the show. Does he have to go for interviews? Do you bring Bill Bella check in and be like, so describe to me your coaching plot. Like, what does Bill Bella check have to prove? Is it just like some owner calls him up and is like, hey congrats you've got the job if you want it?

Yeah, some owner calls him up and is like, hey Bill, we want to bring you in. And he's like, Hey, congrats you've got the job if you want it. Yeah, he, some owner calls him up and he's like, Hey, Bill, we want to bring you in. And he's like, all right, do I have full control? He's like, yep, you got full control. Or if he even has to go to an interview, he just wears all six of his rings. And they're like, oh, that's nice. Yeah, bring your resume with you, Bill.

I'd like you to print out your CV and have it on our desk. Yeah, but, but the real story is Henry. Yeah, or do your Henry. Well, no, we want, people want to hear from you. You don't remember a time when Bella check wasn't your head coach. No, I don't. I do not. I was what I think eight years old when I won in 2001.

So I don't remember anything before that. I barely remember that season to be honest. So it's very, very sad. My childhood is over, which is appropriate because I'm 30. Um, great as coach of all time, great as run in sports history, and it's over. Here's a fun stat I got from Adam Shafter. Since the Patriots hired Bellicag in 2000, the other 31 teams have used 162 head coaches in 224 total coaching stents. That's crazy. That's nuts. I mean, it's an insane run of excellence.

I actually think, can I make you feel a little bit better? Please. I actually think this was a good time for it to happen because he had this year that was bad, right? Last year, what did they finish? They finished like eight times. It wasn't great, but it was like a competitive-ish year. If you had kept Bill Bela check and he had done one more really bad year, then it's the memories start to sour a little bit, whereas now, yeah, there were four or five years after Tom Brady, but I think that those like four or five years kind of wash away as the time goes by.

And it's like, we just remember, you know, the winds and the super rolls and the six super rolls. So in a weird way, I think you should be happy because it could have gotten worse and then it would have been like, what is going on here? Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Yeah, you always remember the good times. The greatest times I've ever had were because of Bill Bell check because of Tom Brady, because of the Patriots. I will always love them. I'll always appreciate him. He's probably, you know, him and the Patriots organization and that run has probably ruined my perception

of football, people always get mad at me, like you don't know what ball, you don't know the draft. That's because of Bill Belichek and the Patriots. Always being in contention, always expecting excellence, always, you know, the season doesn't start till right now. That's over. I'm going to have to deal with a new coach, new GM. I'm going to have to actually start paying attention to the off season stuff and all

that. And it's, I'm not looking forward to it. I've been trained to expect ASC Championship Super Bowl at the minimum. Right. And I'm not ready to, you know, go back to being a normal person. He kind of ruined football for you. In a way, yeah, just they were so good for so long that I now just have to like, and it's also weird.

It's like a, it's like a stepmom situation like whoever comes in, like somewhere, no, it's like whoever, whoever comes in, like how, you know, are you ever really going to love them? Well, what if it's, would you rather be Jared Mayo or Mike Vrayble? I would like it to be a former player. I, I, the Vrayble one, like, I, and I could be way off base here, but I, I think Vrayble is fun to say and I like, I love Vrayble.

He's a great guest in the show. We're fun. The name is fun to say? No, it's fun to say, like, we want Vrayble and I was saying it today, like, I want Vrayble. I don't know that, like like he's as tight with the organization as people might think. They just put him in the ring of honor though.

And, and inside source told me, that inside source being Will Compton, who was here in the office today, that maybe Abel going back to New England for the ring of honor might have had the Titans be like, huh, maybe he just wants to go back there. Well, that was a report that came out to us. Oh, okay, so we'll just told me that.

Yeah, he read the report and then he said, hey, big cat, this is what I'm hearing. Yeah. So yeah, apparently when he went back there and he said so many glowing things about the Patriots organization, he was saying like, this is, don't take this for granted because not every place is like this.

He went back to Tennessee and Amy Adam Strong was like, why'd you say all that stuff? Yeah, what's going on? You like them more than you like me? And he's like, yeah, probably. And who would blame him for that? So it feels like he's got the love for the Patriots. Yeah, it feels like he's got the love for the Patriots.

So why wouldn't, would you rather him or Jared Mayo? Because there was, the argument could be made like, there was a lot of smoke this year, a lot of smoke about the coaching staff and guys not getting along. Jared Mayo was part of that coaching staff. I would rather variable. We're referring guest, friend of the program. He's proven it.

Proven it. Super Bowl champion obviously Mayo is too, but I would I'd rather variable just Proclivity to the show. So okay. Good use to that word. Yeah, good use. Yeah, Proclivity. It's funny that you said.

That was it. Yeah, kind of proximity. Yeah, proximity. Yeah, proximity. Yeah, good use. Yeah, Proclivity. It's funny that you said that was it Kind of yeah proximity is what you're looking for. Yeah, Proclivity. Yeah, we know what you meant Yeah, well, it's funny that you said like if you'd stuck around another year because that is the ultimate Bellicic way right? Right by our guy one year too soon rather than one year too late and this year was bad But again, I think that what if you as long as you don't stack up like five six bad years But again, I think that if you, as long as you don't stack up like five, six bad years, the memory will fade away. And you'll just be like, oh yeah, but yeah, that bail is happy year. That was weird. And you won't even really remember it.

How do you hire GM? Um, interview. Like what, like what? You talk to Ernie Corsi. He says he recommends Bill Polion, Bill Polion then recommends like one of his fail sons. Boom, GM done. That's gonna be weird. Boom, GM done.

That's great. Getting like dealing with a new coach and new GM. Well, if it's Rable, it's unheard of. He might be the GM too. Really? I don't know, he's. He wanted more control and Tennessee. I don't know that they give him complete control.

I feel like Kraft is gonna want a GM and a head coach to be separate right now. Unless it's a guy like Mike Rable who he trusts, who's part of his family. That's the difference. Do you think? Do you think that craft is gonna like, do you think Belichack is gonna have a say in the new head coach? No, he's got fired. What do you mean, Hank?

But they, it was a, you're in, you're in the trial right now. Hold on. He's no longer part of the organization. What? They said buy to him. It's not like Nick Sabin. Nick Sabin will have a say in the,

he probably gave them a list of names. He's gonna have a lot of facilities. Yeah's not like Nick Sabin. Nick Sabin will have a say in the he probably gave them a list of names. He's going to be in the facility. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause he retired. Bill Balecheck have fired. He doesn't. It was a mutual parting of ways. But okay, wait, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. No, but, but, okay. It was a mutual. Like Balecheck probably wants mail. Wait, because that, but, but it was, it was a mutual like Belich probably wants mail wait because that but but it was a mutual parting of ways Do you think Bill Balecheck wants to go find a new job? Do you think Bill Balecheck didn't want to stay where he's been in one six super super rules? Because I I would imagine he probably wanted to stay yeah, of course, okay

All right, that was that was a dumb question. I just thought you know him and him and craft are super super close Obviously again like they but they both know, Belicechek is, is aware of how bad things have gone. And he's like, yeah, it's probably time to, you know, mix it up, but you should go with Drop Mail. But we gave him a suggestion. I just don't know if craft would be like, yeah, I'm just gonna take whatever you say.

You're thinking of your name? I just asked him, he's gonna be, this is a sec. He gave a say. Oh, no, he does not have a say. Bella checked the GM was the worst part of Bella check. And now you want Bella checked the GM to hire the next head coach.

I'm not saying hiring it. My question was does he have a say? I don't think so. Where are you gonna say Max? I think that there's a chance he did wanna leave. Really? I think that he might be at a point where he doesn't wanna do a rebuilding coaching team

and he wants to go to a place that has guys. he doesn't want to do a rebuilding coaching team and he wants to go to a place that has guys. He doesn't want to fix his A. Crash that it was mutual. Yeah, like I know. I think there's a chance that like he's like I'm too old to go through a rebuild and get back to winning Super Bowl as I need to go to a place where I can win Super Bowl. I kind of like that.

And if he was like, but hold on, no, no, hold like, hold on, hold on, but we didn't do it. You think you'll be able to say your own? Hold on. Wait, back up for a sec. I don't think so. I think it was all be- All Bella checks out. If that is true, Max,

like, Bill Bella check will not get as much control anywhere else than what he had in New England. Well, I think regardless, they were taking away the GM. Right, but he would always still have more control than the GM if they hired a GM, because he's Bill Belichick. True. Like, that is his place.

He's six super balls. Like, maybe there's a world where he was like, I wanted to leave, but I feel like you wouldn't want to leave a place where you have the run of it. But I'm looking at it like, if we'll get into the rumors, I assume, but like, if the cowboys are on the table, I think that there's a chance that he, like that could be a mutual parting of ways.

If he's talked to Jerry Jones and been like, and was like, I can take over this cowboys roster now, rather than go to the Patriots. But he wouldn't have any control. Yeah, but I think that he might just be like, he may be willing to go to it, give that up for it. I think he can probably see some silver lining to it, but I don't think there's any possible chance that this was like, nothing in life is totally mutual.

Right. No. There's no way that, like, nothing in life is totally mutual right no there's no way that like I PFT is exactly right like I bet you billbo check today or you know when he wakes up He's like you know that this might not be a bad thing, but there's he wanted and especially like he's a historian of the game You don't think he wanted to break the record with the Patriots a team that he made his entire career there like He definitely wanted to stay sure But there's there's some silver linings for him, especially if you're right.

If you can go find a roster that's ready to go right now and win a shit load of games, because like he probably, there's a part of Bill Bellichek's, like I kind of need to win another Super Bowl so that we're even on the Tom Brady one. Yeah, it's the Brady effect. So there are a number of teams that are interested right now. I'd just like to say on behalf of the commanders,

I don't think I'm interested in longer at Bill Bellachack because now that he doesn't have a team, it's like, poor sh- Oh, do I really don't really want to, like he was way more attractive as a candidate when he had a job. Now it's like, oh, this unemployed guy wants to work for me. So I'm more interested in other people, but-

What does Shane's hit rate on Photoshop's even forced him to do? No, I'm just saying like at the time, was a material change the material change was he got fired I don't want a fired coach. I don't want to read a retread like Bellicac I don't be a wash out. Yeah, wash out like that will circle back to that Come on, it's the same like six guys that keep getting hired in the NFL. They never do anything good I don't want Bellicac, but you want more like a strong silent type like Ron Rivera or Mike Vrable like a guy that you know he can coach. Yeah, so when it comes to

The teams that that are looking at Bella check. I know that the Falcons are looking at him Yeah, which would be very funny and I put out my worst case scenario because I do think that Bella check we go to the Falcons the Bears are trade Justin Fields home Bella check when a Superbow Justin Fields it's a possibility they got a good roster The Chargers that's another option for him and. It's a possibility they got a good roster. The Chargers, that's another option for them. And then there's a mystery team that's still in the playoffs.

I love a good mystery team. And I've got, I have three candidates for the mystery team. Okay. And two of them would be great for the show. Yes. The Dallas Cowboys. Yes.

If Mike McCawsey loses in the first, maybe even in the second game, if they get their ass kicked in the divisional round, I could see Jerry Jones being like we got to make a chance we got to make a change bellicics out here and just having that for Hank I would really I think that would take the sting at him. Do you think that you think because it doesn't on paper make any sense because Jerry Jones that is it's his show like Bill Bellicic doesn't seem like the type of guy who wants his owner doing radio hits talking about his coaching job Every single week, right that doesn't make sense

Do you think there's maybe a chance like Bell check and Jimmy Jones and our friends? I think do you think maybe Jimmy Jones was like hey, you know what Jerry Jones isn't that bad of a guy He's gotten better. I'm in the ring of honor. He's gotten a lot better recently So maybe he has a change of heart that one would be weird to me just because of the power and Jerry Jones has shown. It doesn't matter that it's Bill Bellichek. It's Jerry Jones team. Yeah, and I think if it was the Cowboys, Bellichek, Jerry Jones has said publicly,

like I wanna win another Super Bowl before I die. He's thinking about death all the time. Right. Like any second Jerry Jones thinks he could die. So he wants to get maybe a new, hey coach in there, if Mike McCarty can't get the job done. So that's option one, option two, which would be great for the show,

is the Philadelphia Eagles. Philadelphia Max, if they fire Sireoni, I would love to see that. I would love for you to get, for you to get Hanks later. I would love that Max. Yeah, I'm worried about the playoffs right now. It's about winning on Monday night, but it's not a must win. I thought, yeah, I thought you've already given up about the playoffs right now. It's about winning on Monday night. But it's not a must win.

I thought you've already given up on the playoffs. Yeah, no spoiler. Spoiler. But, what? What? If Bill Bellichick came to the... Everything I've seen is that no one in Philadelphia wants Bill Bell.

Yeah, would you want to film it for reasons? Because I'm a fucking... I actually would not want him on the manager football. I want him strictly to troll Hank. I want, I would, I may, I'm, I've convinced myself for football reasons, yes, but I think that it's you old by hand. Wait, wait, hold on, time out, time out.

What do you mean you wouldn't want him for football? No, I want him for football. It's the best coach of all time. I want him for football reasons. Yeah, and you already have a roster. So that's kind of what I was saying. He'll go find like, he'll go find like a fifth round, you know, linebacker. Like on my label and just be like, oh, he's the best player now. When I was talking

earlier, I was saying Cowboys, but I was really thinking Eagles because like I think of Bill Bellichek had that roster, it would be a whole different ballgame. Yeah, honestly, if you went to a team like the Eagles are the Cowboys, it would make way more sense. Yeah. And it would think going to the commanders, which is a multi year rebuild. Right. It'd be great for just entertainment generally. Yeah, the Eagles roster is getting older. Like, the window is short. Uh-oh.

So it's like, I'm all right, having an old coach who's going to come in and be like, we're in a win and we're going to win right now. We know. But while the while our window is still available, we're going to go win. Win the wall, the wall or window is still available. We're gonna go win. So the third mystery team, I think might be the bucks. Yeah, I agree. I think it could be the bucks.

You might be gonna break it. It might be the Bella check bowl on Monday night. Yeah, yeah. Winner advances loser gets the go, Bella check. Yeah, which would you rather max? Would you rather win this game, lose next round, or lose this game and get Bella check. I win. I want to win. So you don't want to get it if you're guaranteed. I want to win next round. Well, the windows, yeah, the windows closing.

It's close to you. When Dylan Hertz might make too much money for Bella check. Yeah, that might be a sticking issue. The other one that would be very interesting, but would never in a million years happen because Kevin Savansky might win coach of the year, but just doing the full circle Browns get him and Sabin back there. That would be hilarious. Like, and he is a historian of the game. But he hates them.

What? Did he hate the game? That's different owner. Yeah. Is he good to Baltimore, right? Yeah, yeah. So Hank, well, they're, they're, they're current owners of a douchebag too, but yeah.

Yeah, Jimmy Hasle. Yeah. He defrauded like, yeah, tens of millions of dollars from truckers. Hank, I wanna get a little sentimental, is that okay? Please. What is your favorite billbellicic member? Where do you begin? I mean,

mine was when he didn't high five those kids at a Lions game. Oh yeah, that was the best. Mine was all he didn't high five those kids at a Lions game. Oh yeah, that was the. Mine was all the cheating. Are you going, are you back to commanders PFT? Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. The Cincinnati press conference and just how that, you know, catapulted the season. That was a super boning season. That was a great press conference, great moment.

Anytime he threw a challenge flag, every press conference, that was, I'd still would watch the press conference his Monday morning, like Perishko, Tune in, Bill Bup, Bell Check Press conference, like laugh out loud, funny, all the answers, snap face. The way he would play dumb and just not give anyone anything, but he knew what he was doing. He was doing it intentionally,

and then he would open up randomly about like a punter. You'd ask a question about punting, and he'd talk for five minutes about formations and plays from the 1950s. All the Super Bowls, the PFT, you tweeted PFT, the taking the time off the clock against the jets.

Like just like, that would do the little, that would, when he would prove like his vast vastly superior knowledge of the game of football just just for fun. That was to prove it. The dropkick dug flutey. Yeah. Like just to do a dropkick because it was like a cool moment in a football thing. There's a lot. Yeah. When he would put like Aaron when he got mad when he got he they poured the Gatorade ice bath on him and he got furiously mad.

Yeah. That was hilarious because his dad was right there. I'm not bringing this up just to mention Hernandez, but that one season when they didn't really have any running backs and he's like, I'm just gonna turn my tight end to running back and it worked. And it was awesome. Like the Danny Woodhead years were incredible.

Also, when he did that time traveling thing against the Jets, it was so funny because you got to see Bellicke on one side line then Adam Gase on the other. And he bullied Adam Gase into draining 40 seconds off the clock. And Adam Gase just sat there like a helpless puppy. And the smirk that crept over Bellicke's face on the side lines was so priceless.

Like, I know the rules more than anyone else in the world. Yeah, the, also, anytime it got cold. Anytime it got cold. Yeah. Like when he was just put the lop and just look so miserable. He's, yeah, I mean, he's a, like the sadness of the last day and a half is like Sabin, Belichick, Pete Carroll, are all time, like character, fodder for when we watch football.

Yeah. Like they are, the three of them, like you know their antics, you know like the style they have, you can depend on them. So yeah, it's changed. He was a fan of Barsal. His sons are, you know, big fans of Barsal, met them a bunch of times over there.

Never got to meet Bill, but like, he probably knows who you are. They were, they were, you know, obviously part of a huge, huge, Bill Bellachek, none of us are probably sitting here if it's not for billbell check. You could make that argument easily. But if I would say maybe Tom Brady,

will you give more credit to? Bell check. Okay, really? Players make plays. Players make plays, but like, 2001, that was, that was Bell check. Yeah, I mean, it's true bar stool. It doesn't exist without the the rams

like checking in Brady. Yeah, the J. I mean, obviously, it's Brady too, but it's it's I don't I don't think it's one of the other. It's not one of the other. There's it's a chicken in the egg situation. What if he goes to one of these rosters that are really good and again doesn't do well? Do you still say it's Bela Check over Brady?

Oh, good question Maxwell. That would probably change things. I don't, if it's Bela Check over Brady, it's still close, but I do think, I think it's both, but I think the Tom Brady prime years, they lost two of those super balls. Yeah, they also won a bunch. I know, but I'm saying like 2001, you can, you know, obviously Tom Brady made that fourth quarter drive, but it was like the defense I won that championship.

But that Brady has won without him. But no, I know, I know. I'm just saying it's not like I think it's it's it's 51 49. Whoever you want to call it, it's it's not it's not a one or the other. So you would say that Bill Bellicic as Batman is undefeated in Super Bowls. Tom Brady as no, no, I'm just saying like people that want to say oh just because Brady One won is definitively Brady, but when Brady was playing as best football 18 and no like he was the MVP I don't know. Still lost Super Bowls. I don't know if that helps your argument

But I do agree like it's the answer that no one wants to hear because in sports talk, everyone wants to be like, well, it's one or the other, you gotta pick a side. You're, I mean, you're right that it's both of them. They both need each other. They both said that. Yeah, you need the other. You, Brady's never Brady without Belchex,

Belchex never Belchex without Brady. That's fact. So, where do you want him to go, Hank? Dallas, okay. You would become so much more of a cowboy. Oh, yeah, I'd be a bigger cowboy. I said it I said it on the show as it happened with the bucks Like I'm rooting for the I'm rooting for the Patriots first bucks second the only way I'm not rooting for the bucks is if they play the Patriots and Super Bowl which obviously didn't happen

But I was a huge bucks fan. I'm a huge Tom Brady fan I was rooting for the bucks in every game that he played except for last year against Dallas But if he goes to Dallas, I'm gonna be the biggest Cowboys fan, even bigger than I am now. Okay, well, it's gonna be exciting to see where he goes because it'll be funny just seeing him in different colors. Like that alone will be just, I'll know it's suck. It also, I have a feeling,

it's just not an Atlanta guy. I like Dallas guy. I don't know if it's, this might not be what happens, but I have a feeling that Iochek might lighten up a little with his new team. Like, he might just, a little bit. He's still gonna be Balochek.

Well, if he goes to a warm weather place, he might lighten up just a little bit. If he goes to Philly, I don't think he will. Yeah, probably not. You know, probably get harder and he's not gonna Philly. Well, I hope he goes to Philly now. If he goes to, I think the charger is much. I was in the charger, the charger is much better.

What would you do if he went to fill? I would love it Man, hey you would be everything I just said I would not apply if he goes to fill in you guys What if he goes to fill in wins? You're fault we would blame you for max is happy Shouldn't have kicked him out no but Philly fans are scumbags They would not appreciate him. They would treat him like a piece of shit like it would not be I would be started when football games Oh, man

It would be so great like just seeing all for this show Bellachect to the Eagles and the Eagles starting hot and then having like a tail off and Max starts blaming Bellicic and Hank starts blaming Max and it's just sign me up. If we're looking at chess, you might have to spin off PMT. Cattle corn. We just we just do Max and Hank. If we're looking at talking Bellicic at chess pieces, Bellicic loves that he coach Lawrence Taylor. Yeah. He loves that he coach Tom Brady. What's what's the one player out there on a team that might be available?

Yeah, it could make a guy like Bella should be like, I want to, which that guy, it might be, it's my comparison. It's my comparison, yeah. My comparisons, or Max Rosby? Max Cross? Hmm, you should get Bill DeVegas. Yeah.

Why not? Boça? Did you do a lot? Did you do a lot? To be weird, if you went to Pittsburgh. That would fit though. I don't think that they would hire him in Pittsburgh because Bell check is what 70 years old like Pittsburgh they have to keep their they're contractually obligated to keep their coach for at least 15 years

Yeah, you can't really hire 70. I actually think the more I think about it the interview is probably just gonna go Hey, Bill. We like for you to coach here. Are you gonna bring your son with you? We'll do the licking thing. Yeah, as your son gonna be working on the sidelines. Yeah. Well, either way, I'm excited to see what happens, what transpires for both, thank your Patriots and where Bella check ends up.

We should talk briefly about P. Carroll, P. Carroll fired. Yeah, I alluded to it on Sunday. A lot of people online were like, that's crazy, but it felt like the Seahawks have, like if you look at it, they've kind of been the same team, the last five years, like a little bit of success, but also maybe underachieving most years. Do we think there was also a weird report

that maybe it had something to do with them smoking cigars in the locker room after the Cardinals game So but that was actually because one of the players had had a baby. Yes, it saved them But either way peak Carol like I just I that's not like peak girls bad coach. You got fired It's just he's 72 and the Seahawks were like we're kind of doing the same thing every year Even the last few Russell Wilson years, where it's like competitive-ish, maybe make the playoffs, but never really be a Super Bowl contender.

Do you think Pete Carroll still wants a coach? I don't think so. So it sounds like he's gonna remain maybe in the Seahawks organization if he wants to, as I don't know, probably not GM, but like advisor. Yeah. Consigliary. Yeah. He's the hand of Paul Allen. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. I mean, P Carole all-time coach. And if you won that, I think it would be a slam dunk. Top 10 football coach. If you had won that Super Bowl, then they lost the Patriots. Yes. Yeah. He was he was one hand off away. Yeah. And he was yeah, incredible college coach, incredible NFL coach. Also a guy that, like, I feel like he's at the top

of the list of guys you'd want to play for. Yeah, he also, he ages in reverse. So it wouldn't shock me if he just, if his hair turned darker after he got out of the game. Yeah, a little bit more tan, looked another 10 years younger. Like Pete Carroll is, he does not look as old as he is. But then you look at, you know,

if you're a team like the Seahawks, you're probably not going to be great next year. Maybe not great. It's going to be a process to get back to being an elite team. They look decent roster. That's the thing. Do they want, they don't want like an older guy leading that rebuild? Right.

He also now can go spend more time with his twin. That's true. Right. He's going to find him first. Or he'll get to the bond with the 9-11 investigation. Yes. One or the other. That's really what he's up to. So we are gonna talk about Nick Sabin with Andy Staples.

We have him on talking about Nick Sabin, everything that's going on in Alabama, who's gonna be coaching there next. I had one thing that I forgot to bring up about Nick Sabin, the stat that's crazy. Nick Sabin, it's not just the national titles, it's the fact that he literally never had a down year. He had one year in 2010 where he lost three games with Alabama.

Besides obviously his first year. So from 2008 to 2023, he had one single year that he lost three games. That's crazy. It's pretty crazy. In a college football with 18 year old kids, they only have one year where you could be like, oh, that's down year. And that also was the year that they lost to Cam Newton,

the iron bowl with that crazy comeback by KM Newton. So it's like they didn't really saving always just beat everyone who's supposed to beat. And then like once or twice every couple of years, there'd be a team good enough to beat them. Yeah, the best college football coach of all time. I want to play this call. Siven close. It happened day on the Paul Feinbaum. So Paul Fine Bomb has the best callers in the business. They started talking about replacements for Nick Sabin. And they started tossing a few names out there. Paul Fine Bomb mentioned Davos Swinney as being a name that could come to town.

This is legend. That's his name. This is legend from Alabama calling in and his reaction is perfect. And if a double-sweeney I'm pouring gasoline on myself and setting myself on fire on a 50 yard line, you can guarantee it. If a double-sweeney I'm pouring my arm off and taking that contract fracture and beating the hell out of myself. No, I'm damn double.

You hear me? I'm just starting from the hall of barma nation. Get it right. You'll be judged on this one right here brother. I Like that he slipped into a little like Hulk Hogan there just dropping some brothers. Yeah, come on brother Paul. Come on. Paul for me brother. No damn dabbo break my own arm beat myself in my own compound fracture. Paul. Oh, I mean, yeah, dabbo like, and we're gonna talk about with staples, but like he dabbo would be is he was the guy for a while that everyone thought would be at Alabama, but he is not adapted at all.

Yeah, I'm interested to know what what Sabin does in retirement. I kind of hope it's Tommy Reese. Yeah. Enough people. You think they've got from within. If there's enough, I mean, Dan Lennon, obviously saying he's staying. If enough guys in that top three, four,

and the buyout is not, you know, is the buyout too much, I don't know, like, we'll see, we'll see. That would be it. That would be a nightmare scenario. A lot of pressure. A lot of pressure. Yeah, I would not want that if I'm telling you. A lot of pressure, a lot of pressure.

Okay, should we get into Super Wildcard weekend? Super Wildcard weekend. I am so excited for these games. I'm so excited. We have to, again, I have to remind everyone you have 13 football games left. And after this weekend, it will be down to seven. So embrace it, enjoy it. There's like Saturday can't get here quick enough. So, so excited. So let's just do it. Let's talk about these games. We can maybe give some picks, thoughts, uh, you guys ready to dive in? Let's do it. All right. Browns at Texans first game Saturday afternoon, which is, uh, the perfect spot for the Texans. Joe Flacco, he said, uh, what was his quote where he's like, we're going to

do something in the next five weeks that we'll remember for the rest of our lives. I think he said to his team. Okay. Um, little presumptuous, but that's okay. It sounds good. I mean, Joe Flacco in there. We. We, we, we've said it before. We know that the Browns, their defense is elite. We know Joe Flacko was on the couch a month and a half ago. But if there's one guy, one guy in the world that can make you feel like, Hey, maybe the magical runs about to happen. It's Joe Fla. Yeah, he's got a good record on the road in the playoffs. Yep. Seven and five Flacco is coming off the heels on Christmas Eve

of dismantling the Texans defense. Yep. So you can say, yeah, CJ Stroud didn't play in that matchup. He didn't play in that game. Pretty big factor, but CJ Stroud also doesn't play defense. He was the Mara Cooper game. Yeah, the Mara Cooper game, I would have 265 yards. It's crazy.

Something like that. Which, it also,a Cooper game, I would have 265 yards. It's crazy. Something like that. Which, it also, you can make the argument that CJ Stroud not playing that game might work in the Browns favor in this game too, because CJ hasn't seen that defense yet. Jim Swarzka. And Jim Swarzka. He's gonna, he's gonna dial something.

He's gonna have some shit. It's gonna be dialed up, guys, they're gonna pin their ears back, guys will be flying around out there. I'm trying to think of whatever cliche is like. He's gonna, he's gonna do some shit. CJ Stroud's never even dreamt of. Yeah, he's gonna put, I don't know if he's gonna put him

in hell because CJ Stroud seems like a good guy, but he's gonna put him in purgatory for a while. He's gonna make him think and rookies don't really win that much in the playoffs. So obviously Brock Pertie won last year in the playoffs. Before that, you know, the last rookie quarterback to win the playoffs, it goes all the way back 11 years before that to Russell Wilson when he also beat another rookie quarterback, RG3

in the playoffs. Yeah, it's 17 35 and one, a rookie quarterback against the spread, a rookie quarterback going up against a quarterback that's played in the playoffs. And there's four of them this weekend. Yeah. It's CJ Shroud, it's Tuha, it's Mason Rudolph, it's Jordan Love. Yeah. So I think I like the Browns this weekend.

I think the defense is, the defense is Super Bowl caliber. I would agree with you. The thing that I keep thinking about the Texans, obviously, like they've finished the season strong. Tank Dell injury was huge, but they've still, you know, one they I think they finished what foreign to I believe Yeah, or yeah foreign to so they finished strong, but the teams they played in that stretch Indy Tennessee Denver, Arizona those teams

are Bottom third of the league in defense. Mm-hmm. The Cleveland Browns are very very good defensively I think there's maybe a little like bottom third of the league in defense. The Cleveland Browns are very, very good defensively. I think there's maybe a little like, you might get into a point where it's like, it's greatest CJ Schraub's been this year. This is a different animal. This is a different piece,

and this is a team that's completely different than the teams that they've been beating down the stretch. One big question is Denzel Ward, because he heard himself in practice today. Yes, so he heard his knee in practice. I saw a report that he was questionable for Saturday and then Ian Rappeport came back and said that they think he's going to play. So I don't know if he's going to be 100% but that would be pretty significant for the

Browns defense. Yeah. So the Browns, the one thing about the Browns is they are battle tested with injuries. They played pretty much every, every iteration of lineups this year on both offense and defense. Yeah, they do next man up. Yeah, I mean, it's like Denzel Ward's misgames. I mean, Miles Garrett, what didn't miss games,

but he was hurt for a few games. He's been hurt. Yeah, he's been hurt. Like their offensive line has missed, you know, all types of games, like in terms of shuffling everyone around, Nick Chubb. Nick Chubb got injured like 10 years ago. Yeah.

So if there's one team that you can be like, all right, well, they could probably still still bounce back from injuries. Probably the Browns. I'm very excited to see if the Browns happen to win two playoff games. What what goes on with the Dishon Joe Flacco discourse? Are they going to be able to afford Joe Flacco? I would like to do the discourse right now. Who would you rather have? I'm taking Flacco as a human. I'm taking Flacco, even better human being the football player, even better human being than football player. Even better human being than Dishon Watson's as a human being. Dishon Watson way, way better football player than human being.

Correct. Way better. Slightly a large gap. Maybe the biggest ratio, one of the biggest issues. Oh, Jay. Oh, Jay. Oh, not guilty. Yeah.

Heard it, heard it. Heard it. Heard it. Also not guilty because it was vacated after. Yeah. Yeah. So he's in Sharper. Durn Sharper way better football play. Much better. The tight end.

They're nugget. Oh yeah. Murderer. I murdered nugget. Yeah. Well that was the offensive lineman. Yeah. Yeah.

But in today's game, I would say that Tashon Watson has the biggest football to good guy ratio. Yes. I would agree. Uh Sean Watson has the biggest football to good guy ratio. Yes. I would agree. Uh, Henry Ruggs. He's not in the league. Aaron Rogers. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Good point. How many grandmothers has killed? Do you guys see that we got in a good luck off? Oh, with who? So Tony Diggs who was former coworker of ours, who we love, who works on the Pat McAfee. Sean Diggs. Tony Diggs. What was his name, Tony? who was a former coworker of ours who we love, who works on the Pat McAfee. Tone digs. Tone digs.

What was his name's Tony. And he got in a good luck off with Clay Travis. Oh, one. I take the Pat McAfee show side on this. Who won? I believe Clay did the last good luck. So Tony did. Okay.

All right. So Tony has the luck. Yeah. Yeah. He said, yeah. Tony has the look. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He he said, uh, yeah, Tony Tony started saying like, uh, what was it? Uh, good luck. And then Clay Travis came back and was like, good luck with your show. And then Tony was like, no, you good luck. Clay's like, no, good luck. I like that. We had good luck off. Has Clay tweeted good luck or well played more frequently. He said, you guys legit said he was done for the year yesterday.

Now he's suddenly back talking about Rogers, which that wasn't the case. Like, I don't know why people started. Rogers, I think, does it stop doing the Pat McAfee show after the season's over and he like comes on every now and then. And then like a bunch of reporters were like, he got fired from the Pat McAfee show, which is very bizarre. And Clay took it and ran with that and was like, oh man, this is like McAfee went, whoa. Yeah, they fired Aaron Rogers. So then McAfee and a good heel move brought Aaron Rogers on today.

Okay, like, yeah. Also, it's very interesting to see everybody that covers sports media, that hates Aaron Rogers, do nothing but tune into the air and Rogers reviews and transcribe every second. Why are they giving this guy so much free attention? Meanwhile, they're literally tweeting out bar for bar or everything the air and Rogers is saying. A lot of hand-ringing. Yeah. A lot of what are we going to tell the children? Yeah. Shut the fuck up. It's entertainment. Shut up. We will get to the Jason Whitlock's, Stephen A Smith in a little bit. You're that bastard. You're that bastard. It's entertainment, guys.

So I kind of like the over in the skate too. Okay, good weather. Yes, very good. Yeah. I do too. I actually know what? I like the Browns offense. I like the Texans offense.

Browns defense obviously is out of this world. But I still think CJ Straras is going to get his. Well, you just said really bum me out. What? Because I love all the dome overs and I realize it's just because there's no weather. There's no weather. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's such a contrast. It's energy stadium at dome. It's got it's got to retract. It's just really. We don't roof clothes. Yeah, it's indoors. Okay. No one will have that. You just you said one line and it just like light bulb in my head. Hey, you moron. Yeah. If it's indoors. Okay. No matter what you just you said one line and it just like light bulb in my head Hey you moron. Yeah, if it's inside. Yeah, it's over I might have to take the outdoor overs just to prove a point do the outdoor I can lose money both indoors and outdoors outdoors

The weather's gonna be crazy. All right, so you have a nerd nugget for us Jake. Yeah for the playoffs I actually Research one for each team That's cool if you guys so we're doing two nerd nuggets We're just gonna do one for each game. No, no go ahead go give us a two For the Browns since Joe Flacco was taken over as Brown's quarterback He has led Cleveland to a foreign one record as a sardin became the first player in NFL history to record at least 250 passing yards and two touchdown passes in his first five games with the team. Because he's elite.

Yeah, his mother fucking Joe Faco. Yeah, that was a good, that was a good nerd nugget because it was just Joe Faco elite. Yes, also it is a retractable stadium in Houston. Yeah, but it's gonna be close. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then for the Texans, the first team at NFL history to win their division

with a rookie quarterback and a first year head coach, C.J. Stroud to Miko Rines, the fifth rookie QB and first year head coach, Duo, since the merger to, Domingo Rines, the fifth rookie QB and first year head coach, duo since the merger to make the playoffs. So you guys know the last one? Rookie QB and first year head coach to make the playoffs. Rookie QB, there's been five total. Rookie QB and rookie head coach to make the playoffs.

First year head coach to make the playoffs. Andrew Luck and was it was Pagan. Chuck Pagan. Yeah. Also rookie. Chuck Pagan. That was good. That was good. Also, Oh, nine Mark Sanchez and Rex Ryan. And then two and oh, eight Matt Ryan and Mike Smith and Joe Flacco and John Harboh. Mike Smith. Okay. Yeah. I remember that guy. Jesus. Yeah. It was like he was like, Mike Smith was just create a

coach on Manhattan. Yeah. He looked like a Philly, a Tardo If Mike Smith walked by me on the street, it would I would never Never be able to pick him out. Yeah, it looks like an insurance salesman Mike's in his name, too. Yeah, it's just it really is a creative coach. Yeah, okay good nerd nuggets Jake All right, Saturday night dolphins at chiefs by the way tune into our stream We got Nikki smokes in Frank the tank All right, Saturday night Dolphins at Chiefs. By the way, tune into our stream. We got Nikki Smokes and Frank Tatek. It should be something.

We're gonna stream Cowboys or sorry, Browns Texans as well. We have Jeff T. Lowe coming and our great producer, Kevin Zupi, who's a diehard Browns fan. When Deshaun Watson went out for the year, I came in early and he was just on the phone with his dad and he was like, we're just never gonna catch a break. He was about to cry.

Yeah, he loves the brown. And Jeff T. Lo is, everything is the apocalypse. Yep, yeah, he's actually just like a cleaned up version of Frank the tech. Yeah, he just says, instead of like biting his hat, Jeff will just say brutal. Games over. Absolutely brutal.

Yup, classic browns. This is so cool. Jeff, they just lost the coin flip. And he'll do hashtag brutal. Yeah. So it should be great streaming great streaming. Okay dolphins at chiefs Saturday night It's gonna be cold Very cold dangerously cold as a matter of fact. That's what the weather service is. Oh no no children and dogs outside Dangerously close the latest forecast approaches a windshield of negative 30 degrees. Whoa

Negative 30 you shouldn't be outside. No one should be outside, but they're gonna be like, you know what, fuck that. We're gonna put 90,000 people outside at the same time. But I kinda, like, you gotta go to that game if you gotta take it, because that's like a, that's a badge of honor game. Negative 30 is so cold, it feels like you're vaping

every time you breathe. Yeah. Every hit. Yeah, your nostrils, like the, your nose hairs freeze up, everything. So, we've talked about the candy ass jerseys. Aaron Shats, by the way, has some great info about everything. The actual numbers about these games, not just us guessing on whether it's indoors or outdoors in candy ass jerseys. But the dolphins, as a franchise, I believe, I don't, oh yeah, under 50 degrees, there are 15 and 42 straight up, 2 and 19 straight up in the last 21 games as a franchise under 50 degrees and 2 in his coldest starts in the NFL or college, 29 degrees.

He almost beat the bills, remember last year, the snowball game. Oh, I remember. Yeah, 36 degrees. They got killed by the bills in 2021. 37 degrees. They got killed by the Titans in 2022. Two of it does not play well in the cold. And those games are not negative 30 degree windshield. Correct.

That's 37 degrees is warm. No, can you, I don't see to winning this game. I want to wait and see what what do we know what jerseys They're going to be wearing that will make that will make a direct impact on how I choose to bet this game. So Everything that I look at with the dolphins tells me that the dolphins are gonna struggle a lot because even like like Andrew Vanguinc Oh God hurt I know that Xavier Howard and Jvonne Holland are both like game time, but they should play. Jalen Waddle should play, but their defense,

even last week gave up 21 points and a punt return to the bills. But if you look at that game, the bills had two red zone turnovers, a turnover at the 40 and they got stopped at the one going into half time. The bills with 400 plus yards of offense could have easily scored, you know, 35, 40 points of that game.

Yeah. The good news is I don't think the chiefs are as good on offense as the bills are. So that's yeah, but they might they might just do Pacheco. They might just say this guy the way that he runs, he looks like a cold weather running back. Let's just feed the guy. So all that. Yeah.

Like I agree with you and that might be the game plan, but then again, obviously Andy Reed. Yep, Andy Reed. Andy Reed will have to fight himself. Andy Reed, I just, I feel like five points is too many points. And I think that what's happening here, like if you told me gun on my head, who's in the game, I'd say chiefs,

but what have the chiefs done this season that show you that they can like beat teams consistently by five points or more? Nothing right nothing and we're doing the flip switch and I don't know if the flip switch is there for the chiefs this year I think it's gonna be a lot of they're gonna have to like if they're gonna get back to the Super Bowl It's gonna be like grinding it out feel goal games like tough tough football games Not blowing teams out like on some of their super war runs, you know, remember that Texans game, like, I don't know. I just, I think five points to many points.

Counterpoint, the weather. I know. I mean, the, the stats that you had for two, you can just watch two of when he plays in the cold, he looks very uncomfortable. Going on the road, Arrowhead is like one of the top two or three hardest places to play in general in the NFL. And I don't know, I feel I feel like the chiefs, everyone's disrespecting them. And for good reason this time, like they have not given us anything to believe in. But I still think that the chiefs in the playoffs with Andy Reed with Patrick Holmes, they can be the chiefs.

They can be the chiefs. They can they can take care of business against the dolphins. I think everyone's thinking that too, and that's what I kind of like to dolphins. It's one of those situations where everything, when I look at this game, says chiefs, and that makes me think dolphins. Well, you're right. The chiefs have not been good.

Right, and again, I don't think the dolphins are gonna win this game. It wouldn't shock me if they did, but if I had to do percentages, like are gonna win this game. It wouldn't shock me if they did, but if, you know, like if I had to do percentages, like dolphins probably win this game, I don't know, 25% of the time, but five points, I just, I don't know. I think the dolphins either win or lose by 17 plus.

I could see that, yeah. I think they might be just like, see, I think they're gonna lose by three. Blowing the division, or they might just have a chip on the shoulder that everyone's counted them out and win the game. I think they're gonna lose them. Down for three. Blowing the division. Mm. Or they might just have a chip on the shoulder that everyone's counted them out and win the game. I think they're gonna lose by three. I think I'm gonna take the chiefs.

Okay. Okay. With Frank the tank. I'm not gonna say anything. I do have my proper year, super wild car proper year, Travis Kelsey score touchdowns plus Monino. Okay.

And the dolphins are not regarded in the tight end, and I do think that like when you get to the playoffs, try out patched moams and be like, who can I trust? Travis Kelsey's the guy I can trust. Is she gonna be there? I don't know if she's so. I mean, we had this whole breakdown the other day.

Yeah, working network. Jake, do you know that the box is another word for Regina? Yes. All right, all right. I just keep holding along with the joke. I didn't know, I didn't know. I didn't make those actual jokes. I didn't know.

I didn't know. Wait, what? I thought we were talking about sweeps. I was't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. Wait, what? I thought we were talking about sweets. I was. Okay. All right. All right. What do you mean, Nusk?

I wasn't talking about vagina. There you are. All right. Wow. Thanks. I don't recall that at all. She will be there, though. I would assume so.

And she'll be bundled up in that warm, sweet, all the pop well, the poppers, common folk freeze their balls off. Maybe a baked potato girl's gonna be there. Remember her? The lady, I think it was at a chief scam a couple of years ago. She was eating a baked potato to keep herself warm. Yeah. And she's brought one in as a hand warmer. If Taylor Swift cared about the people,

she'd let everyone in her box. If she really cared about the people, she'd take a couple extra flights on her private jet back and forth, maybe get the degrees up globally. So it's not that cold there. But ask yourself this. What's the warmest place in that state? It's gonna be Taylor's box. Yeah, it's very cozy. Right. So let everyone in the box. I almost said something and I didn't and I want credit for not saying what I was about to say what would you have said? Oh texted me I'll say it. I was just gonna say I'm not gonna say it. Okay, Texas Hank make him say okay

Hank, will you say it? Probably not do the nerd nugget well. Yeah, also I just had a fun name the bird nugget about the cold weather Let's go back to the door. I mean nuggets are we gonna do? Yeah, very. No, no, no, no, no. For the dolphins, they've won, okay. They do like Gucci, man. What's that? I know who that is.

Like what's that? Oh, okay. For the dolphins, they've won just one road playoff game since their 1972 undefeated season. Yes, they had to go on the road in the postseason despite being undefeated. They had a different format. Like a rotational home site thing.

But the good news for Miami going into Saturday night, the dolphins are three and a whole time in the playoffs against the chiefs, never lost the chiefs in the playoffs. For the chiefs, big guy. That, Nurgut stinks. Cause it's all in like the 70s and 90s. Yep, but it's facts.

It doesn't relate to this game whatsoever. But it's factually correct. It is factually correct. But I like my N nuggets that maybe help me. You want like, you want money. Yes, right. It's fair. It helped the audience learn something

that they don't know that could maybe get it. Well, I definitely didn't have money. Well, yeah, well, maybe they knew it and forgot it because it was what. We're not gonna say it. Hank, don't say, well, say, text to me. No, I texted to Hank. I don't gonna say it.

Hank, you texted to me. No. At this point, I don't think we should say it. No, I don't wanna say it, but I wanna see it. So Hank texted to me. We'll bleep it. No, no, just texted to me. We'll bleep it.

I won't say it either. No, we'll just keep it all unsaid. Meanwhile, for the chief's quarterback, Patrick, we're homes in tight end Travis, Kelsey, have connected for 14 postseason touchdowns. And guess what? They need one more to tie Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski for 15,

which would be the most touchdown connections between a quarterback and pass catcher and NFL postseason history. I like to guess what that you added in there. It's my super wild card prop of the year. Yeah, so one more they would tie Brady and Gronk for most ever in the playoffs. So with Hank's texting to you, he might just be changing. So this is a classic game of telephone. Yeah, I don't think he's changing it.

Yeah. I think why are you in notification silenced? You're off the clock? No, I just wanna get distracted during the show. He's texting me word by word. Yeah, so he's just making it up. Okay. You know I'll say it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't not say it. He's so annoying, fuck it. Okay, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, we have the Pittsburgh Steelers going to the Buffalo Bills and no TJ watt. No TJ watt, they do have her big who's pretty good, but when I see happening in this game, it's a lot of points, right? 10.

10 points now, all the way up to 10? 10. I would not be shocked if the Steelers covered the spread because that's too many points and it's going to be a weird game. It's also yeah, classic Steelers voodoo. Yeah, yeah, they might they might muck it up a little bit. I see a lot of plays where her big gets up field because he likes to do the him and TJ both like to do that. They like to they like to uh, uh, wrote like rush hard off the edge and they leave that little gap there on the end.

And Josh is just gonna eat that up. I think that Josh is gonna have a big day running. So I think the bills are gonna win this game, not a crazy thing to say when they're 10 point favorites. And I'm bullish about the bills, it's up to glazing. bullish about wait till you hear her and chat, talk about Josh Allen, people are gonna be upset about that.

I'm bullish about the bills because if you look back at last year and that fangles game and that playoff game and they got bullied Absolutely bullied the bills now do have a legitimate running game It's not just you know, remember when the last couple of years where we trick ourselves and be like oh the bills have a running game Because they ran it because you know 50 55 yards like oh, they can kind of the bills have a running game because they ran into, you know, 55 yards like, oh, they can kind of do, they have a running game this year. Yeah. They have James Cook, who's been awesome. Josh Allen is a part of the running game and Leonard Fernet can be a bullion cold weather. Play off Lenny.

Play off Lenny. So I do feel differently about the bills in a game like this where they're not going to get pushed around like they did last year. I also, I agree with your take that like the, the Steelers can, there's something about the Steelers that like they'll just keep teams in a close game and it's like a perfect matchup with the bills who when they're favorites by double digits,

they keep teams in a close game. Right, right. There've been a bunch of games this year where the bills have played way worse teams than them and they somehow keep it close. I think there's also just something about the Steelers helmets in January, in like December. Football weather.'s football weather, and you see black and yellow, and you're not going to score more than 25 points. It's the anti-dolphins. Yeah. Yeah. The bills,

the last seven times they've been double digit favorites, they have lost against spread. Okay. So that's a, that's a, that's a nerd nugget that can maybe, you know, put people in the right direction that does they do they do fuck around. They fuck around. There was a there was a rumor that they might move the game to Cleveland because of the lake. The lake effect. There's a lake and Cleveland. There's a lake and clear. In fact, it's one of the things that's most known for is it's actually the same lake. If they did that, they'd have to do it on boats. They have to move the game on boats. They have to get the teams on a boat. Oh, God, you know, and then travel across like Erie for it. Yes. That'd be good.

I hope that doesn't have. Why would they do this thing in case it's like dangerous conditions? But I also heard. I heard people say that that is it's a rumor, but apparently it's like the emergency site for the game. Fuck that. Yeah. It's possible. You can's like the emergency site for the game fuck that yeah It's possible for a playoff game the bills fans will be doesn't matter There is no emergency situation for bills just yeah their life they live in an emergency right they'll be fine

They know what to deal with this weather. Um, they're gonna be so drunk so drunk. I hope Fizz is there with a shirt off It will be interesting because the I do think the Steelers can run the ball a little bit. And Najee Harris, fun fact from our friend, Jersey Jerry. Najee Harris in the last three years has more Russian yards than Christian McCaffrey. How was that? Well, Christian McCaffrey has been an entire year. Oh, but he's been telling everyone that's that. Okay, yeah. He's true. He's he's yeah. He's been walking around with that stat in his back pocket just dropping it on people It's most people don't really like he said it to me and Emilie was like Christmas. I've missed an entire year So yeah, so I like I like the bills to win obviously, but I don't think that they cover Yeah, I like the sealers money line. Whoa

You hate all our friends you hate our friends gotta be a dog that was you hate our futures got a dog that wins Okay, why does it have to be the one that me and big cat have the biggest future all right? Sorry. Why can it be the dolphins cold Oh true why can't it be about the cold why can it be the Packers? Because the cowboys are at home. Yeah, but you won't be there to root on your cowboys true Because I'm gonna be there next week Looking ahead looking ahead Saturday right now it says true because I'm gonna be there next week. Oh, look at the head, look at the head. Saturday.

Right now it says current conditions for Sunday are 21 miles an hour wind. That's not that bad. No, it's not bad. And snow. I'm excited for that. We might have to bet the over if the snow is coming down and there's loose footing and.

Yeah, there's a real. That's really running around. Bring back shady McCoy. Yeah. Okay, what's your nerd nugget in this game? You kind of mentioned it, big cap. But Steelers running back Snagy Harris and Jalen Warren, each rush for 750 yards of the season.

They're the first Steelers running back duo to each rush for 750 and more in the same season since 2004. Jerome Betis, who also played for the Rams, and do Staley. Oh, okay. That's a good nerd nugget I like that one big boyish in that backfield good work Jake. Thanks and for the bills despite struggling down the stretch Bill's water seabird Stefan Diggs recorded a 100 plus reception season for the fourth year in a row making him only one of four

Pliers and NFL history to do that He also became the first player and bills history with four straight one thousand yard seasons I don't so Stefan Ds obviously is still very good. Yeah, he just didn't put up like elite numbers on the stress. Right, but there's some games where he just stinks. Yeah, I don't know what's going on with that guy. Him and Gabe Davis, but I think Gabe Davis is, he's like full goal. He's on up in the backfield.

Some plays too. Stefan. Stefan digs just. Yeah. I'll say it. He's got bad body language sometimes. Yeah, it's the mouthpiece. Yeah, figure out the body language.

I do think the bills are very dangerous to go to the Super Bowl, glazing alert. But yeah, this is the fact that they get two home games here if they beat the Steelers. Yeah, this is a bad day for dads to look at the screen and see you got stuff on digs and pickins with the mouthpieces everywhere. This is a mouthpiece matchup.

Yes. Also a bonus one, these two teams have met three times in the playoffs and the winner of that game This is a mouthpiece matchup. Yes. Also a bonus one. These two teams have met three times in the playoffs, and the winner of that game in the playoffs has gone into the Super Bowl. All pretty 2000, so I know it's not helping you, but I still think that's cool. OK.

OK. Packers of Cowboys. Henry, your Cowboys. Did you guys see Jerry Jones earlier this week? Classic Jerry Jones, just making headlines to fuck up his own team. Can't get out of his own way. After the game against commanders, he said about Mike McCarty's future, we'll see how each

game goes in the playoffs. Yeah. Always good to go a game by game. Well, it's because he knows he's got Bill in the line. Yeah, and then he had to clean it up. And so he went back on air a couple days after and he said, I was a little surprised talking about the previous comments. I don't know how I could be any clearer. Coach McCarthy's under contract for next

year. So that's not an issue for him. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That definitely. Okay. Coaches don't get fired. Yeah. Secondly, I couldn't be more pleased with what's what he's done and how he's coached. I certainly have sat down here right in the middle of the playoffs and started talking to him. I certainly certainly have sat down here right in the middle of the playoffs and started talking to him. I certainly haven't sat down here right in the middle of the playoffs and started talking to him about a contract. Why would you do that?

And by the way, he's the busiest cat in all Texas. I just looked at the last one. Yeah, it's a great line. Busiest cat in all the Texas. He's a cat,. Business cat in all the text. I see he, he's like, where is the cat? Just a fat tabby. He's well within his rights to say,

like we're gonna take Mike McCarthy in the playoffs on a game by game basis. Yeah, but you say it out loud. Yeah, like that's great for morale. Yeah. Hey Mike, better win this game otherwise you're fired. It's a big game for Mike too. Big game, big game.

Going up against the Packers. as the coach of the Packers He's 2 and 0 well. I think he's 2 and 0 and Dallas Green Bay Playoff games So the Packers won during the 2014 season that was Tony Ramos final playoff game. That was the air Rogers pass on the sideline What was that the debt does caught it does oh that was 2016 2016 right six Yeah, the one in Dallas was the air and Rogers one one of the, I was saying it, one of the best passes ever. Yeah. It contorted his body and like, it like, it was like a sidewinder pass.

That was the Mason Crossbar game. Yes. Where he had that kick that did funny business in the air. That pass was, look it up. It's like that pass and like the Eli Manning Mario Manningham pass. Yeah. Incredible pass. Yeah. and like the Eli Manning Mario Manning Ham pass. Yeah, spread it with that. Spread it with that.

Dac is one in five against the spread in the playoffs. Interesting. His one win being last year against the box. Okay. Against the spread. I think I might make this a nuclear missile well play on the over and the cow. I don't know how the packers are going to stop the cowboys. And I also don't really know how the Packers are going to stop the Cowboys.

And I also don't really know how the Cowboys are going to stop the Packers because Jordan loves them in that good. Yeah, I mean, the answers to Dallas defense is much better than the Green Bay defense. But the Dallas team, but Jordan loves been playing great and the Dallas defense, well, good. They are kind of front runners. They're good against bad teams at home. Right.

So I guess we're going to find out if the Packers are actually a bad team after this game's over. We also have my one step from sports info solutions every week. Packers defense plays middle of field coverage. So cover two cover four on on 52% of their snaps and Dak is highest in the league on target rate against that defense. Okay. I think I think there's going to be a lot of points in this game. Would you say that it's too early in the playoffs for a team to do a gimmicky situation like a home whiteout? I think it might be too early.

They're using their whiteout. No. The Cowboys are doing their whiteout this weekend. Oh, whiteout, that's college basketball. Yeah, it's that works when you're doing it for a student section. You can't do it for an NFL team. Yeah.

I don't know if all the fans are gonna get the memo. Oh, they'll want me to memo. You think so? They're crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jerry Jones probably has, like, I wouldn't imagine if Jerry Jones has a hotline to everyone's phone and Dallas.

Hank, what colors are you in a phone that you wear? To Cowboys games? Yeah. I'd never been to a Cowboys game. Oh, but I'm just saying like, The one that you own. I know you own a Cowboys game. I have a DAC-Proscauture. What color is that one cowboys game. Oh, but I'm just saying this week, the one that you own. I know you own a cowboys jersey. I have a DAC-Prosca jersey.

What color is that one? Twight. Oh, good. Wow, that sucks because they probably went to the Whiteout next week. Yeah, probably not. Do you have your gene shorts? I don't have gene shorts.

I can probably get something by next week. Also, shout out to the anonymous person who sent me the Ravens Purple Camo. Oh, nice. Those are the best pants. I appreciate that. I just showed up in my office today. They're the best pants in the world. Yeah, I just love that every NFL team at one point had those pants.

They did it as like an experimental fashion drop thing. Yeah, and then the Ravens just bought the fuck out of them. Yeah, and they're like we're gonna keep these around just for Baltimore. Yes. Yes. Um Yeah, I like this over a lot. I like this over a lot. You guys want to ride with me? Yeah, that's a well play. Yeah. I like this over a lot. What's it at right now? 50 and a half.

That's what I'm going to bet it at. I'm probably going to take the over on every game. Yeah, why not? Yeah, let's parlay him. Yeah, there you go. Okay, nerd nugget for this game. Cell fact check does caught it January of 2015, based in crossbar January of 2017.

Okay. So it was a 2017 game in Dallas that he had the throw. Yeah, January of 2016. I want to look up to 3431. Packers, they have scored at least 34 points against Dallas and all four of their games at AT&T Stadium. I know that's an aerogorster. But that's the longest streak by any NFL team versus Dallas at AT&T Stadium. I know that's an air rager step, but that's the longest streak by any NFL team

versus Dallas at AT&T with no team doing it more than twice in a row. Also, Green Bay is the only NFL team with four plus wins and no losses against Dallas at AT&T Stadium. So that franchise has a lot of success here. So they've got four wins at AT&T Stadium. Four plus, yeah. Four plus.

I don't know if it's for exactly, but they're not lost. The Cowboys are going for their third playoff win at AT&T Stadium. Four plus, yeah. Four plus. I don't know if it's four exactly, but they're not lost. The Cowboys are going for their third playoff win at AT&T Stadium. So this would just be dominance over the franchise as a whole. Yeah, I mean, only one of those is playoffs, but still. Yep. And then for the Cowboys, do do do do, nerd nugget of the week.

Nerd nugget of the super wildcard weekend. Put this one on the wild meter. And Dak Prescott's first career playoff start in 2016, he was in his first year as the starter against the Mike McCarthy lead Packer's team. And Jordan loves first career playoff start in 2024. He is in his first year as a starter against the Mike McCarthy lead Cowboys team.

Interesting. Okay, yeah, okay. Mike McCarthy going against the young guns. Yeah, first. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Mike McCarthy going to get the young guns. Yeah. First career playoffs start. Like McCarthy. I'm watching the card on the sidelines. He was going against his body and he like threw it and it like it actually like curved. We can we can all agree that Mike McCarthy is fired if he loses this game, right? Depends on yeah. Well, okay. I think he is. The problem is it depends on how but the when you're like

Mike McCarty loses a playoff game the how is always just a terrible Mike McCarty mistake you can find a reason you find something that is done well no because if you lose us by 15 20 points then he's fired because you got blown out if you lose us by seven points okay it's because he did some bird-brained activity on the sideline. Here's a way that Mike McCarthy could lose this game and not be fired. First quarter, bang, bang, play on the sideline. Someone rolls up on Mike McCarthy, ACL and concussion has to go to the hospital. I shouldn't laugh at the thought of that.

But that would probably keep his job. You can't fire a guy who's got an ACL and concussion in the hospital. I was gonna say if Dak gets hurt, that's another way you could probably keep his job. Yeah, you could probably keep his job that way. But yeah, Mike McCarthy will do something dumb. We have a, if the Joe paterno, I'd say maybe if Mike McCarthy either gets rolled up on the sideline like Joe Pa. Shoot a wicker horse at that, I was at that game.

Or if, if, and at that at Joe Pa, we knew. Or if before half time he runs the locker room because he has diarrhea like Joe Pa. Yeah, I think either way would be an elegant way to save his job. It's all flushed out. Also if they lose this game, the seven seeds never eaten the two and say it's out of the seven seed three years ago.

That's not that, that's five, six games. Six games. Yeah. But like I'm saying, if they lose, that would be the first time. Yeah, it will happen eventually. Yep. Great uniform matchup in this game. Classic. It's, I mean, this

Packers Cowboys Cowboys Niners Packers Niners, that's the 90s. Yeah. Okay. Favorite game of the week. I think we all can agree. Rams at Lions Sunday night. Hank has been correct in correcting us. Everyone's talking about staff are going back to Detroit. This is the Jared Goff revenge game. Yeah, it has to be like that is, and I actually like that all the stories about staffer because that makes the revenge game even better for Jared. Yeah, this is a hundred percent Jared Goff revenge game. Sean McVay tried to take some of the sting out of this because he knows that it's the Jerry golf revenge game Right, he admitted he's like yeah

There's a lot of things that I wish I could have done differently when I traded Jared and let him know ahead of time He like deeply regrets how that went down. I actually don't think he regrets it He just knows that this is the Jerry golf revenge game And he's trying to like make nice with him And in fact all the all rams are trying to make nice with Jerry Goff because Aaron Donald texted him this week and he said, I'm proud of you. Wow.

He told Jerry they said. That's some, there's, yeah. They're not on the head. Yeah, that actually adds fuel to the fire. They're trying to go, so they're trying to kill him with kindness. Yeah. Jerry, just don't respond to any of those texts.

They're trying to get at you. Did you guys see the bar in Detroit, Thomas McGeeee's that is banning all Stafford jerseys? I love that move. They released a statement saying, please refrain from trying to enter Thomas McGee's on game day with Lyon Stafford jerseys. You'll be turned away at the door. It's our first home game in 30 years. Use common sense. I like it. That's sports fan. It's a big time common sense play. Yeah, where anything is a savage You cannot wear a staphagy or if you're Detroit Lions fan on Sunday night

The thing that makes me so nervous about this game is there's such an imbalance of upside and downside for each fan base Depending on winning or losing like if the Rams win The Lions fans are gonna be devastated. It's gonna be the most devastating thing that's happened to them. At the end of a season, that was great. And Jim Harboss probably going to leave the next day. Maybe. But if the Rams win, how happy are Rams fans really going to be? What do you mean? Like Rams fans, they, you just want a Super Bowl. They don't have like a die hard, rabid fan base. There are Los Angeles Rams fans. Yeah, no, I see what I mean. Like it's such an imbalance in terms of the potential heartbreak. And then if the Lions win, it's huge for that city.

Yeah. Huge for every fan. If the Rams lose, they're like, oh, fuck it, we'll just go to the beach. Yeah. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, I agree. I like the Lions in this game. You've been saying Rams all week, and I've switched.

I'm, because sometimes when you think like going with your gut, I said, Rams all week and I've switched. I'm, because sometimes when you think like, going with your gut, I said Rams all week, I'm betting the Lions. I'm gonna take the Lions just because I don't, I don't want to make blood money off the Rams winning. I will lose money gladly if the Lions lose, but I want to make money with the Lions winning. They also, here's a fun little fact about the Rams.

We're going to talk to Aaron Schatz about the special teams, which I think will show up. Like, you know, they'll have a blunder. They'd be like, Oh, shit, that was bad. The Rams are one in six against playoff teams this year. They're one win. The Cleveland Browns Joe Flacco. I believe his first start when he went to LA. So I don't know, they kind of, they kind of kicked the shit out of like the Cardinals and

the Seahawks a bunch. I went for an O against those guys. It went to overtime against the Ravens though. They did go to overtime against the Ravens and then, Punt return. Yep, then Punt return. Right. So yeah, I think there is a little bit of the Ravens games like, ooh, they can go toe to toe, but yeah, their, their wins, their season was four wins.

What, what did they end up with? Nine wins, 10 wins. So four out of 10 of their wins were against the Cardinals and the Seahawks. Throwing the commanders and giants there. I don't know. I think the lines are better. I think the lines are better. I'm scared of the lion's secondary, but, and I don't, as the reporter's definitely not playing, right? So, he took reps of practice today

and he said that he feels good. If you saw the video of the injury, it looked bad. His knee like bent, it bent outward to the side and everyone's saying there's no chance you can play on this. Apparently, I don't know, maybe they might just, they might just be saying like he took reps and feels good just to make the rams have to think that he's playing.

He said he's optimistic about playing in court of the Rams have to think that he's playing. He's got the mystic about playing in court of Detroit free press. Okay. He's young. I think also the Lions, if they're smart and Dan Campbell's a smart coach, I think they just run the ball down their throat. They're probably going to run. Dan Campbell's probably going to go for it on a couple of weird fourth downs.

I'm nervous. I'm very nervous. This is I'm excited about this game, but in so far as that it makes me feel live how scared I am about this game. I think the lines are gonna do it. I hope I hope you're right. Hank, what do you think? Lines. Yeah, I think the lines are gonna do it. And I do like you're right when the line came out on Sunday. I was like, oh, Rams three three and a half. And for the first four days of the week, I was like, Rams, Rams, Rams. And then I was like, wait, you're an idiot. Remember that you're an idiot. Go against your God felt so smart about the Rams.

Right. If you ever, like everyone knows this, when the gamble, if you put something in and you think it's a win, it's never a win. Yeah. And that's how I was feeling about the Rams. And now I'm like, I'm all lions. There's no chance they win the Greek jerseys, right?

Oh my God, they can't do that. That would make me better. Yeah, me too. Yeah, me too. That would be the biggest mistake they've ever made. If you're the lions, you wear the blues. You have to wear the blues. You can't go, you cannot.

You cannot wear those ugly, ugly grays. All right, nerd nugget. For the Rams, we have some milestone watches, defensive tackle, Aaron Donald needs one and a half sacks to pass Kevin Green and become the franchise leader in sacks in the postseason also Cooper cup needs five receptions to pass Marshall Falk and become the franchise leader in postseason receptions. Okay. Fun and interesting the Falk is the postseason leader in receptions. Yeah. He's probably really good. Yeah. Yeah. And for the Lions of the first team NFL history to have

four different players produce 850 plus scrimmage yards and 10 plus TDs in a season. Dave Montgomery, Jermior Gibbs. I'm on our Saint Brown, Sam Laporte potty. We need Sam Laporte to play. Yeah, I don't know if he is. Yeah, we need him to play. Also, you guys see the moon thing? Got tags in that a lot. Oh, we have a waning gibbous. Yeah, the moon was a waxing crescent the last time the lines won a playoff game. The moon on Sunday would be a waxing crescent. Okay, good enough for me. All right, good enough for me, I'm in. Great, love that.

Lines. All right, Monday night football last game. Eagles, box. Let's do this Sunday. Okay. Yeah. Are you sure? Yeah, let's do it Sunday.

Oh, we could do it Sunday. It'll, yeah, let's just do it Sunday. You sure? Yep. We usually do a preview on the Monday night football. Yeah, you know what, true. Actually, let's do it Sunday. You sure? Yep We usually do a pretty month and a football. Yeah, you know what true Because there'll be less games to talk about on Sunday around I'll agree. I'll agree you I'll grant you the Monday Just also because I would like to know who's actually playing for the Eagles. Yeah, that actually does make sense. Yep Okay, let's do a Sunday. All right. Let's get to it. Can I just ask you a question though? No

How do you how do you? How do you feel? How do you feel about Jalen Hertz finger? Not great. We'll talk about it on Sunday. Followed question. Is it still not a must win? We'll get to that on Sunday. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, let's get to our interview. We got Andy Staples talking Nick Sabin and then we got Aaron Schatz talking NFL playoffs. Before we do that, part of my cheese steak, big news. We teamed up with Uber Eats

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Thank you, everyone, who orders it. We think we've actually, you know, fine tuned this to some really good cheese steak. Perfect football food, perfect weekend food. Go and do it on Uber Eats now or part of my cheese steak.com. All right, here is Andy Staples. Okay we now welcome on one of our good good friends. It is Andy Staples the on three network. We thought we had to have him on because Nick Sabin has retired the goat. So Andy we want to talk about everything including Nick Sabin's legacy, what made him special,

as well as who's going to take the job. But let's start here. When you hear the news on Wednesday, what were the emotions? Was it shock? Was it, you know, sadness to walk us through what you're immediate like 20, 20 minutes after we're thinking? I was shocked because I thought watching him this season that he enjoyed it so much that it would kind of re-energize him because he'd been complaining about the changes in the sport and it not seem to

be having as much fun. And I realized Nick Saban didn't always look like he was having fun, but you could kind of tell, he liked this team so much. He liked that it grew over the course of the year. He liked that it wound up where it wound up, winning the SEC, beating Georgia. And I thought, okay, this will put him, put him in the right frame of mind to keep going for this. Because I always thought, Nick's even always complained about

any sort of rule changes up front. But then behind the scenes, he was always working to turn those to his advantage. And I just kept thinking, oh, well, he's just figuring this out. And so when the news comes down like damn that's it. It's really over. And I always wondered like what would the celebration be in the rest of the SEC when he finally retired because I think about

how many coaches this guy got fired. Yeah. It's crazy. Auburn's had five coaches. Right. He's been there. Yeah. You would get guys fired and then he'd bring them in to work as an assistant for them. Yeah, and then send them back out. Rehabilitate them like a refuge for an animal that you found out in the wilderness, like hit by a car. Yeah. Nurse it back to health and then release it into the wild.

That was, Andy, when I was looking at all the stuff, and obviously there's some crazy stats out there, seven national titles, all these things. you know, there was a stretch where he lost like whatever, three games in a long stretch. The single, the single stat that wowed me the most is that Nick Sabin ended his career 11 and one in SEC championship games. Like that's crazy. That's insane. Like that. He just, he just bullied an entire region of the country for the better half of two decades. I'll never forget the first one.

The first one he was in was LSU Tennessee in 2001. I was I was a ball's beat writer, covered them for the Chad and Gatine's repressed. They had just gone down to Florida and the game that had been moved because of 9-11. So it was the last game of the regular season. Tennessee beats Florida, wins the East East and everybody in the state of Tennessee is making Rose Bowl reservations because the national title game was the Rose Bowl against Miami and every single person in the state of Tennessee they had beaten LSU earlier in the season and Sabin had a plan for them and he lost his starting quarterback and he still

won the game anyway and that's when you knew like this dude is an absolute wizard. And then he just kept going and kept going. And so yeah, the 08 Florida team was the only one that got him in the SEC champion. Here's another one. Nick Sabin's Alabama team spent, or no, Nick Sabin himself, LSU and Alabama, 109 weeks at number one in the eight people. I think that's more than any other program. Period. That is crazy. There's all sorts of crazy stats like he had more first round draft picks

than he had losses at Alabama. Just crazy, crazy stuff. And he ended up, I think six of his losses at Alabama were in the first year. So you can kind of like subtract those and then look at what his record was post his first year after he got everything installed there And it's just crazy to see what he was able to do you Elman row you Elman row got more publicity for beating Nick Sabin in his first year Like that's the answer the trivia question answer for everyone's like, oh, yeah, Nick Sabin first year lost to you

Elman row Yeah, so do I mean from the outside we look at Nick Saban and he always seems like a little bit surly on the sidelines. He's grumpy until you know, he wins a national championship. Then he smiles for about 30 seconds and then he gets back to Cruton, right? So but inside his program, I know that his players love him. So can you tell us from like a player perspective, what type of guy Nick Saban was and why his players seem to love him so much.

He's apparently a relentless shit talker at practice and they love that. Like Terry Arnold, who's one of the corners this year, was on my show and he's explaining it to me. He's like, he's like, Sabin is going to needle you the entire time, especially if you're in the secondary. And it's not, you can't look at it like he is being mean to you. Like if you give it back to him, he appreciates that, especially if you can play.

And like, I know Mac Jones NFL career has not gone the way they wanted it to. But like when Mac was the scout team quarterback, Mac talk shit to save and all the time. And Sabin love that. Uh huh. That's awesome. I also love the Sabin story. I read a long article. His, I think he had hip surgery recently, so he might not still do it, but he had the basketball games

that he would play with his entire staff. And I loved it because it was, it was clearly the sign of his competitive nature. He wants to see his other guys be competitive. But there was the undertones of like, he might stack the teams a little bit so that his team always won, which is the ultimately. Any call all the fouls. Yeah, any call all the fouls. Yeah, but like that's, I would imagine there was a lot of shit of like he might stack the teams a little bit so that his team always won, which is the ultimately.

And he called all the fouls. Yeah, but like that's I would imagine there was a lot of shit talking in that as well, just being competitive at all times. 100% and like I always say, people say, you know, how does he coach? And you see these CEO head coaches like and like Bear Bryant was up in a tower all the time. Nick Sabin was on the field. And until recently, he was throwing passes to the corners before practice.

And Jeremy Pruitt, you saw what he say. You know who the real DB's coach at Alabama is. It's Nick Sabin. But he actually would act like the GA who worked for the DB's coach. Right. At the time. And he wanted to be, and I asked him about that. He wanted to be ground level because he's like, you can see the problems before they really surface on game day. He's like, I don't want to be surprised by things. And that's why I

stay so, so in it. Yeah. You mentioned Mac Jones. It's got to be a really weird day for him, huh? Yeah. Well, then we're Bill O'Brien probably, too. So I think he's, he's all right with that. Yeah. It would be funny if they came out and they're like, I know Sabin won seven titles, but we saw Mac Jones in the pros and like he wasn't able to coach him to a point where he could be a pro bowl, multi pro bowl team. Maybe Nick Sabin retired out of shame. Yeah. So I can't believe I give Bill this.

Mac Jones killed multiple. Yeah. Strange day for Mac Jones, but with Nick Saban, he was football. He is football, he continues to be football. I'm always curious to know what these kind of guys do when they retire. I don't know if he's gonna be able to stay away from the game, maybe he's just gonna change completely

and go live on that lake in Georgia that every coach lives on and go fishing all day, take up golf. I don't know, what do you think Saban's gonna do? In his personal day-to-day life. I have no idea. This was part of the reason why I didn't think he was gonna retire. I actually asked Kevin Steele, their defensive coordinator, who had worked with him on multiple

occasions. I asked him this a week and a half ago, right before the rose ball. I said, what the hell is he gonna do all day? Steele's like, I have no idea. He's got the Mercedes dealerships. He's got that Ferrari drive. He can hang with Miss Terry. They went to Italy last year.

Maybe they want to go see the world. But I can't imagine him without the structure of something that lasts from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every night. What is he going to do? I would love to see him on TV personally. If Lee Corsow retires, put Nick Saban in that spot. That's a good idea. A good game day around him. I would listen to anything he says because if you've ever

watched, they do a show, the Alabama coaches show after each game and he breaks down one key play. One of the things and there are many superpowers that Nick Saban had, but one of the things he was great at is making even the dumbest person understand these complex concepts. Like he can explain quarters coverage to any person in the world in about 15 seconds. Yeah. Like he's just, he's a good teacher period. And so I would love to see him explaining things on college. And a plus, he's funny as hell, low-key.

Like, he's very, it's a very dry sense of humor. Half the time you think he's being nasty, but most of the time he's actually joking. I love that idea. The other idea I saw thrown out there, which would be genius. I think Belicek still wants a coach, but if Belicek and Sabin created a consulting firm, they could just name their price. Like, they basically are the delight of, of, or the McKenzie of coaches.

And it's like, teams just bring them in for a week to fix their problems. Don't you think they just dig chanye the whole thing though? We found the perfect person and it's us. Yeah, we can handle this. Yeah, it's Bill O'Brien. Yeah, that's weird. Bill O'Brien, yeah.

And if you don't like Bill Josh McDaniels, it's a reasonable Bill Brighton. Yeah, and if you don't like Bill, Josh McDaniels, it's a reasonable placement for him. So when I saw the news that Sabin retired and then 18 hours later, Belichex gone, I had the thought like, these are probably the best NFL coach and the best college coach of all time. And they leave their jobs within 18 hours of each other.

That's got to be the biggest coincidence of all time or they wanna team up and do something together. So, maybe when the, when the bell chick news came out on Thursday morning, I was like, did Nick call him and say, hey, can you give me a day? Yeah, yeah, I would be shocked. I'm like into like a couple in their 90s.

And the husband dies and the wife dies two hours later. It's like, wow, they just, their heart broke. She died from heartbreak. Would it be the craziest thing in the world to imagine a Nick Saban and Bill Belichick podcast? Oh, my God, that would be amazing. That's your weird box in a cell. If you imagine, start dating Taylor Swift, Melichick?

You're fucked. We're fucked. I don't know, you imagine starts dating Taylor Swift, Melachick, fuck. We're fucked. I don't know. You don't think that Miss Terry would do numbers? I think that Miss Terry's got a lot of stands out there. I wish it was. Yeah, maybe. Maybe Belachick Golden Bachelor. Yeah.

Oh, Belachick Golden Bachelor and just one of Miss Terry yelling at Nick. Like that's a that's a one day a week one off. Yeah. Because he he will listen to everything she says. Like, I've done the radio show with him and she sits right there in the front and he's looking at her like,

is it okay what I just said? It's cool. That's great. I always not doing that with anybody else. It's like Ozzy Osborne and Sharon. Yeah. The best was when Miss Terry did the video was like, can we not swear during the song?

You know, where they sing it? What between the third quarter and fourth quarter? And everyone was like, can we not swear during the song? You know, where they sing it? What between the third quarter and fourth quarter? And everyone was like, what? No, we just, Terry, like listen, you get a lot, like we love you, but we're still gonna swear. You know, fuck Tennessee. Well, he did.

It's Dixie Land Delight. I mean, it's a song by a band called Alabama about having sex and a truck in Tennessee. So, I mean, it does really run the gamut. Yeah. The people forget that. It's literally a song about Tennessee and listening at Alabama. Yeah. I'm curious to know from your perspective, you would take these three things and rank them in order of how they contributed to Nick Saban no longer being the coach at Alabama, Tim walking away. One Michigan winning the national championship, two Georgia

becoming dominant with the exception obviously this year's SEC championship game, and then three, the NIL era of college football, which one of those three, what, and what order would you put those? Well, I think the NIL stuff would be number one out of that bunch. And we'll see if there's something more personal going on. I mean, that's for Nick Sabin and company to say. But I do know that was the NIL part was something that bothered him. And I always looked at it as a problem

maybe he couldn't solve. Because there were certain things that he figured out how to deal with when they changed the recruiting rules over and over again to stop whatever it is he was doing. He would just adjust on the fly and keep recruiting number one classes. When the up-tempo offenses drove him nuts, he's like, do we really want this to be football? And he wasn't asking so much his warning and saying, basically, okay, if we want to do this, I'm going to take the best athletes in the world and do it with them and see how you like that.

And so he did that, but in this case with E and I L, he cannot make more rich people in Alabama. Texas is coming into the SEC. Oklahoma's coming into the SEC. They got to deal with LSU, Tennessee's, very well-funded. Like, you can't make more rich people to fund this thing, even though they care deeply about football in Alabama

You're not gonna have as many people as that care deeply about Texas and Texas say in em football because they just have more people Yeah, but I did see the stat that like the the calculations of what Nick Saban made for the University of Alabama It was like over a billion dollars because essentially in his time, the out of state attendance enrollment in Alabama has like skyrocketed. The total enrollment has gone up by like 20,000 people. And then the tuition for out of state is like triple.

So it's like they did the calculation. It's like he's made over a billion dollars for the University of Alabama. Yeah, that was a good column I want to oh yeah, I wrote that oh you did last come shit when he got his last contract Yeah, no His hiring actually and this is coincidental coincided with the state reducing funding for for the university And so they had to go get more out of state students and the football team success allowed them to get

Many many more applications from out of state to take better quality out of state students. And yeah, I think I pegged it at 250, 300 million a year to the university that he was worth extra. Damn. Yeah, someone stole your column and put it in a tweet. That's what I saw. Oh, that's fine.

It's great. All that hard work, but it's okay. That was for another company. Yeah. It doesn't matter. Yeah. So, all right. So, you mentioned one thing that I've always admired by Nick Sabin his ability to adapt. Like, because I think that's really the story of Nick Sabin. The winning the championships with defense, running the ball, the Greg McRoy's no offense to him. But like, these quarterbacks that don't go on to be like incredible pros. And then switching it where it's like that Alabama wide receiver room four years ago was would have been the best wide receiver room in the NFL at the time with the guys they

had in the in two and even Mac Jones. Like what is it about Nick Saban that he was able to stay ahead of it while so many teams aren't able to find that. That's as I mentioned those superpowers. So there's two other ones that are very important. One is that adaptability. The other is getting 18 to 22 year olds to perform in a consistent manner

over and over and over again. But the adaptability piece, especially when you're talking about coaches that make this kind of money that get got it up like nobody's business. They're worshiped. That would make anybody say, well, I'm right. I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing.

But he always was looking at what is somebody else doing that they might be doing better than me? What can I change to make myself ahead of the curve to make sure that I never fall behind? Cause one thing he said to me, I asked him in 2017, I was in his office. I think it was the week before the Auburn game and I said, you know, how will you know when it's time and he said I will leave before I am

content to watch it go down like he did not want to have a sunset period like Bobby Bowden did at Florida State. He wanted to dominate till the end. And so I just think he always was trying to stay one step ahead. And I remember, I did the guest hosting on the radio show, the Thursday before the Texas A&M game in 2012. So that was when Johnny Man's L came. He predicted every single thing Johnny Man's L would do that day. Basically predicted they would lose, the Alabama would lose, like it was 100% correct. But on the sidelines that day, he had linebackers who were at 220-ish pounds and they're looking

out at the Alabama linebackers. These are official visitors, high school kids, and they're looking out at the Alabama linebackers that day and going, huh, I don't, other than CJ Mosley, I don't really look like any of them. Those guys are like 250 pounds. And the coaching staff is like, yeah, coach wants us to get smaller linebackers so we can deal with offenses like the one you're about to see.

So he was already planning on how to deal with that. Yeah, that's an awesome story. Yeah, it is. In terms of Alabama's job opening right now, would you say that as far as jobs go, is this a great like top three job? Is this the best job in the country, or given the limitations that you just said with NIL,

is it not one you're following in the footsteps of Nick Sabin? So that's gonna be tough. And then combined with what they have to offer to recruits, is it not that great of a job, or is it still like, yeah, it's Alabama football? Anybody should be interested. It's still a really good job because it's a place where people care so deeply about football.

It's a place where people will pull in the same direction like that. And I think Saban showed them how to do this. That everybody who's a rich person who has influence at the university doesn't need to have influence over this. If you just trust the coach, trust the AD, you can watch it work. Just give them the money and let them go. That's something that Texas has been trying to fix and deal with. Day A&M is always trying to fix and deal with that.

I've always said Georgia's the best job. I guess it was like 2015 when I flipped Georgia to my number one best job. And I still think that's true. I think it's easier to recruit to Georgia. So Kirby's got the best job. He's think that's true. I think it's easier to recruit to Georgia. So Kirby's got the best job, he's showing why right now. Ohio State's probably a better job because you the way you dominate that state,

you've got tons of money, tons of people. Alabama is a little bit harder than those jobs and Nick Sabin made it look easy. But it's hard because not only do you not have as many really good players in the state of Alabama, you also have to deal with Auburn. And there are times when Auburn has a really good recruiting head coach, like Gus Malzahn

was fantastic at Auburn. He just wasn't good enough to be better than Nick Sabin. Right. And that's the problem. But Hugh Freese is there now. Hugh Freese is gonna recruit like a madman. He's gonna get talent at Auburn. So whoever gets

the job at Alabama is going to have to fight tooth and nail for every single good player that comes out of Alabama. Yeah. So can we just toss some names at you? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Um, Sark. So that's okay. This is a good question. Sark, does he have a better job at Texas because there's no Nick Saban in Alabama now? Right, right. That's a great point. Right, he's actually made his job easier. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure Kirby Smart was like the happiest person alive

when Nick Saban retired. Yeah, because I wonder about that. Like, you could go to Alabama, and yes, Nick Saban's infrastructure is all there. You used to work there, so you're going to keep a lot of the stuff the same. But the thing is, the stuff that Nick Sabin wanted that he couldn't solve for at Alabama, you have it, Texas.

Right. You know, you have a good denial set up. And all Sark has to do, which is, believe me, much easier said than done, is get everybody to pull in the same direction, a Texas, but it does feel like he's getting that. Yeah, all right, so what about Lane Kiffin? I know that one is obviously talked about a lot. It seems like everything I've read,

Lane Kiffin would be a home run hire, but maybe the people at Alabama, there's a little division in terms of internally, whether Lane Kiffin would be the right coach. Yeah, they worked with Lane. I don't know if everybody who worked with Lane wants Lane to come back to Alabama. I also wonder if he's not in the perfect spot right now.

Because Ole Miss, they're not expecting you to win national titles. They don't really care how you do your job. Just go do it, get it done. Alabama, you are every little tiny thing you do at Alabama gets screwed nice. Like, this is the thing that, back in the day, Dennis Franchioni ran away from Alabama

because he couldn't handle that. You are the biggest celebrity in the state. You are more powerful than the governor. And you have to be able to accept that part of it and accept the scrutiny that comes with it. And does Lane want that? I don't know. I really think he's in a great place.

It'll miss for him. That said, I think the hell out of fun if he's an elder. Yeah, it would. Yeah, it would. You have, I that said, I think be hello to fun if he's an album. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you have to take the call, right? Yeah. Okay. Oh, you absolutely take the call. Who else? All right. Here's, here's a big one. Okay. Urban Meyer. He'd want it. He'd want it. Yeah. You know, all these other jobs that his, that his name is popped up for. I don't think he would have wanted, he would have wanted this one. I just, would Urban Meyer be successful in today's college football is my question.

Would he be able to deal with NIL and players having agency? We saw how badly it went when he was with the Jaguars. It's the same now in college football. Like you have to have the respect of your players and you can't tell them, I'm gonna send you on the next bus out of town. Yeah.

Because they'll be like, peace out. I'm gonna go to Auburn or I'm gonna go to Tennessee and I'm gonna beat your ass. So I don't think that that's necessarily the greatest fit for this era of college football. This has been 10 years ago, I said absolutely. He's gonna kill people there. But I thought Dan landing would be a good fit, but he has said he's gonna kill people there. But I thought Dan landing would be a good fit,

but he is said he's gonna stay at Oregon. So that one's out. I got another name. Yeah, go ahead. You told your name. I would do this name. I don't know if he'd wanna leave the situation that he has because obviously he's been a resounding success year one,

but D'Amico Ryan's. Yeah, D'Amico Ryan's an Alabama grad. I think you have to call him, but he'd just put the text in the playoffs. Right. He's also never coached in college. So that's the one where you're not sure how he would go. Because I threw, when I did a list of candidates, I threw Mike Vrable on there and I threw Dan Quinn on there, but both of them have coached in college.

We've seen them as recruiters. We know they're good recruiters. Now, you look at D'Amico Ryan as you hear him talk. I don't think D'Amico Ryan's would have coached in college. Right. We've seen them as recruiters. We know they're good recruiters. Now, you look at Dimaiko Ryan as you hear him talk. I don't think Dimaiko Ryan's have any problem with recruit. That little recruits. Mom's are going, yes. Yeah. Yes.

Can I look at you? My son's coming to play for you. Right. Does that mean I get to look at you some more? Okay. But no, I think you call, but he's in a really good, and I think anybody who's in the NFL right now doesn't want to deal with an IL, doesn't want to deal with the transfer portal. They've got a better, like they get paid the same for less work. Okay. I don't, yeah. That makes sense. I had one more

than I want to hear what you have to say just because it was very funny. Uh, Pete Dammel, our guy, NIT stew caught this. Pete Dammel tweeted, buyouts for the coaches that could potentially be at Alabama. And then he edited the tweet and added James Franklin's name. So James Franklin clear his agent called Pete Dammel's like, what about you? He texted him. It was so funny. It was like, Dan Lennon, Sark, Lane Kiffin.

And then you see you can look at the edited tweet and then James Franklin gets put in there. I'm not going to kill Pete on that because Pete is a hell of a reporter. And I'll be honest, I've gotten those calls too, like from the agent like, hey, why isn't this guy on the list? They're like, oh, my bad, I just forgot. But no, the landing thing with the $20 million buyout, I think that Oregon had to do something to make sure they didn't lose their guy because they lost Willie Taggered after a year

to Florida State and lost Crystal Ball in Miami. So I think they wanted to make sure he stayed, but you know, Kaelin DeBor, he's got a $12 million buyout. I think it's funny because I spent, you know, in Houston over the weekend, all these Washington people are asking me, are you think Kaelin Dvor might take Michigan

if Harbaugh leaves him? I don't think you have to worry about that. Like if Harbaugh leaves, I'm assuming they're promoting Sharon Moore. But now that the Seahawks job is open and the Bama job is open, I'm like, I don't know, Kaelin Dvor might consider those. He is a phenomenal coach

and been successful at every level. So I think he'd be great. The other guy in the situation for this fan base, I hope this doesn't happen, but it makes a lot of sense is Mike Norvell at Florida State. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. He's been recruiting in this area. Like Florida State has to recruit against Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, LSU. You're already in that world.

You're just not in the same conference. We learned what happens when you're not in the same conference when they went 13-0 and got left out in favor of one-lost Alabama. If they call, if you're Mike Norville, I think you have to listen to that call. Yeah. Because you're now, look, the 12 team playoffs coming, that wouldn't have happened to Florida state next year. You can win it, Florida state. You'll be able to compete. But will you be able to compete for national titles year in year out?

I don't know. At Alabama, we know you can. Okay. I liked that. What about a dabbo? Is dabbo getting a call? Obviously, Alabama guy. Yeah. I courtesy call, what about a dabbo? Is dabbo getting a call? Obviously Alabama guy.

Yeah. I courtesy call maybe. Okay. You can't win at Alabama if you don't use a transfer portal. Right, yeah. I don't think Alabama would want dabbo because if everything you said about Nick Sabin adaptability, dabbo is shown to not be that.

Yeah, and that's the thing. Like unless dabbo comes in and says, I'm gonna be a completely different coach than you've seen the last five years. And I don't think that's dabbo, I don't think that's in him. I just can't imagine it because, like, look at what Nick Sabin did in the transfer portal and it wasn't a lot, but like Jamison Williams,

when they needed a really good receiver, they went and got him. And the Tyler Steen, the tackle last year, they went and got him. I don't think that Davo would be willing to, if he's not willing to do that now at Clemson, why would he be willing to do it at Alabama? Yeah. This is probably not a good name for it, but I'm going to say it anyways, Jimbo Fisher. Nope. No. Well, as adaptable as Nick Sabin was, Jimbo was that stubborn. And

I think that's where they diverged. I mean, if you think about it, Jimbo was probably the best guy after the guy in college football history. Here place Bobby Bowden in three years later, he won a national title. Now, a little bit different situation because Bobby had had some bad years before he left. But Jimbo in 2013 was at the front of, you know, the forefront of the sport. And he's just not now. And as great as he was and as great a bit of a guest as he was last week, like I just think maybe he's going to enjoy some of that buyout money and not not worry about this

right now. I feel like the best guy after the guy for his own personal game was Mel Tucker. Well, he got a call. Well, he did it all. Well, he did it all. No, and now if Sabin had still been there, I would think Mel Tucker was a prime candidate to be an analyst at Alabama. Right. Oh, yeah.

So, yeah, I think I guess Kirby has to start taking those guys now because Mel worked with Kirby in Georgia. So my guess is, is the Nick, what what it might lock the Maryland coach called it the Nick Saban witness relocation program. I think Kirby's got to take that over now. I think it's probably in the contract. So who's who would be your guess if you had a guess right now? The weird thing is they did say Nick Saban though I saw a report that Nick Saban was like we're gonna have someone in the next 72 hours. So they're gonna move fast. But who would you guess right now? Well, as we're recording this on Thursday,

like I don't know if they're gonna have, they might have a hire before this episode drops. Yeah. So it could be fast. So if I'm wrong, you feel free to laugh at me here. I'm gonna say Mike Norville. That is gonna be my guess. That sounds mean though.

It feels mean to even think about that. It does feel mean. It does feel man. I know for a state fans will look at where I went to school and think that's why, but I'm just connecting dots here. That's all I'm doing, but I could very well be wrong. So everybody feel free to laugh if I got this wrong. But I do, it does feel like, you know,

when you hear landings already out, like this is moving pretty fast. Yeah, I've got my best plane tracking guy on it. So I've got a plane tracking guy on it so i've got a plane tracking guy uh because it is plane tracking season for college and in fl he actually DM me yesterday morning and said hey i think saybin is retiring today based on these flights that are going from like his hometown uh to albama so he had this earlier so i've got my best guy on it i know that you have a long-stored history dealing with plane trackers

Oh, playing playing track. Great. Oh, it's unbelievable. I so yeah, I feel like I knew about flight aware long before anybody else and I actually was the reason that the University of Florida blocked their tail number on flight aware when I was a beat writer I had written a story about it after they hired urban Meyer. But the funniest part during that search, so I was covering Florida for the Tampa Tribune. Jeff Darlington was covering it for the Orlando Sentinel. He's with the SPN now. He sees a flight going from Salt Lake City to Gainesville, Florida, which is a straight, like not normal.

They're not direct flights between those two places. And obviously Urban Meyer was at Utah. So he goes to the airport and I call him because I knew the hire wasn't going to be made. We both find out and it's not it. And so I call him like, what was the plane? He goes, it was a liver. Someone's life is being saved. Well, the best livers I would imagine would be in Utah, right?

Exactly. So some Florida man was getting a nice Utah liver, nice fresh Utah liver. Yes. So I had one last question, Andy. This has been awesome. Robac question, rhobac.com. Use code take 20% off your first purchase. Robac is wonderful, close sponsor.

Qzips Polos, Hodeys, Jagger, shorts, fleeces, vests, everything rowback.com, the best in the business. I know Andy wears it all the time as well. What is success for the new Alabama head coach? How much time does this person have? Because it is like, it's a great job, but it also comes with a lot of pressure. So I could give the politically correct,

oh, it's gonna be fine. They're gonna be a little more realistic and you know, you don't have to win in a national title every year. Nah, nah, screw that. Paul! This dude better win every fricking game. No, your job at Alabama is to win the national title every year.

That is your job. Yeah, so actually Sabin doing a podcast with Phyllis would be incredible, right? Just get a rotate. She's passed. That would have been amazing. We could say onc, yeah. Yeah, we be bored with all the greatest scholars. So if the new guy doesn't win a national title in three years, maybe let's say

goes to the playoff two out of those three years, wins an SC championship, but no national title. Is it going to be like, is Alabama going to have patience knowing that yet patients is probably better in this situation than having to go back and keep finding new coaches or are they going to lose it and be like, this is no one can fill Sabin shoes. The Alabama fan base will not be patient, but I think the administration, give it, like if the person is making reasonable progress toward national titles,

like if they're in the playoff, if they're winning playoff games, then the administration's probably gonna be fine with that, but the fan base will be raising holy hell if they're not winning national titles in three years. Yeah. Tough job to fill. Very tough job. Very tough job to fill. I remember when they did that coaching search, was it price that Sports Illustrated wrote

that article about? Yeah. Go read that article if you haven't yet about the things that price was, was it a mark price? No, Mike Price. He'd been in Washington state and the, the establishment and question is called Arte's Angels. Yeah. In the Pensacola. So I'm not sure which side of the state line it's on. I think it's on the Florida side of the Florida Bameline. It's one of those places where it's close to the state line so you can easily escape the police if you have to.

Correct. Yes. All right. Well, Andy, thank you so much as always. This was awesome. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks, guys. This was awesome. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks guys. Thanks Andy Andy Staples is brought to you by Chevy Silverado the Chevy Silverado has commanding an unstoppable grit

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and learn important details about Supercruise. And now here's Aaron Chats. And now for something completely different. Now here's Aaron Chats. And now for something completely different. Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest. Someone who is very, very smart about football much smarter than us, and we've never quite fully understood how smart he is. It is Aaron Chats. He's a chief analytics officer of FTN Fantasy.

You can find him at FTN fantasy or at A Shats NFL. He created DVOA and we want to talk about the playoffs, but we have to start here because PFTN I think we're huge football fans. We understand, we're smart enough to understand that DVOA is smart and important. We have never understood what actually is DVOA. So let's start there. Okay, DVOA measures the success of every play based on the down and distance, and then compares it to a league average baseline that's adjusted for situation

and opponent. Okay, that's the short version. Okay, better than zero means good offense, lower than zero means good defense, Lower than zero means good defense. And overall, it just measures your efficiency on a play-by-play basis. Okay, better than zero means good offense. So can you give me example? Like in the NFL this year, what is the best team in terms of offensive DVOA and what is the number that's associated with them? So San Francisco was at about 32% Okay, okay is actually one of the top 10 offenses of the last 40 years. Whoa, okay? Okay, it's good to know and who is the worst team this year? The worst offense was the New York Jets. Oh, oh, Interesting. Okay, so so it's basically everything that we see is being confirmed by the numbers

Right, I mean sometimes Advanced metrics don't quite look like wins and losses, right? A really good example this year is back after week 12, Buffalo was six and six, and Philadelphia was 10 and one. And yet we had Buffalo fifth, and we had Philadelphia ninths. Right. So sometimes advanced metrics will look a little bit different than the eye test because it felt like the Eagles were winning a lot of close games and the bills were turning the ball over a lot. But when you looked at the underlying metrics, the bills looked like the better team. And that was born out by the rest

of the season. Yeah. So when that happens and then you have the rest of the season, you have the Eagles fall off a cliff and the bills finish out with wins to get the number two seed. are you just like fist pumping? You're like, yes, everything that I've created is true. Yeah, basically, that's all I like to be right. I mean, I think anybody who does this, anybody, unless in the advanced metrics world, like we all like to be right. We like to be proven right.

I mean, we want games to be fun and interesting and players to make cool plays. And everybody has a team they root for. I'm a Patriots fan, but not a good year for us. So I was more rooting for my numbers than I was for the Patriots this year. Yeah, so back to DBOA real quick. When did you invent it? And like, what can you just tell us the backstory

of the invention of it? And like how you tinkered with it to fine tune it, to get it to a point where you're like, I trust these numbers and I trust what they're telling me. Yeah, 2002 is when I started doing it. I started playing around with football analytics when nobody else was really doing it. I was inspired by a book called the Hidden Game of Football that came out in the 80s and then had a new edition in the 90s. So I had the 90s edition. You can actually go and buy that book now. They republished it, I wrote the forward

to the publication. So that gave me the basic idea for success rate, which was to judge plays based on the downed distance. 45% of needed yards on first down, so like five yards, 60% on second down, a hundred percent on third or fourth down. And then I added to that by comparing players to average, because when I originally did it, I ended up with Mike Allstot as the best running back in the league. It's a good stat. Yeah. Yeah. You should have ended

right there. But the problem is Allstot, I mean, the reason why Allstot came out so good is because he always gets the ball in situations where success is more likely like third and one. Right. So when I redid it by comparing to a baseline, I ended up with priest homes as the best running back in the league and that made more sense. You screwed up, you screwed up. You had it right with all stuff.

You made it perfect. Yeah, that's a good stat. Yeah. What you actually did was you quantified grit. Have you ever tried to make a stat to quantify the unquantifiable? No, man. What I say is intangibles are called intangibles because they are intangible. I actually, I kind of, I kind of agree, but I think that me and Big Cat could give you

some parameters for like how to quantify grit. Like the number of wins a team has in colder weather. Like you have to wait cold weather games a little bit more. You have to wait like the percentage of roster breakdown, what players they have from like Pennsylvania and Ohio. On each team. That sort of thing. The number of players that play injured too.

Uniform colors. Uniform colors. Uniform colors are very important. You need black. Yep. Yeah. You can't have candy asks. You can't have the dolphins.

Like the dolphins, they do bad on our grit metric Right, but what is DVOA plus? Oh I I'm not sure where you saw DVOA plus you should make a DVO DVOA plus I waited DVO I have a thing called weighted DVOA. Okay Yeah, which is weighted towards more recent games. So it gives more strength the more recent games. But yeah, we could add grit. I mean, my favorite coaches are the coaches like Dan Campbell, who are both analytically sound and want to rip your knee caps off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They have the combo, the perfect combo. All right. So talking about

DVOA this year and like I said, we want to talk about the playoff matchups. But what is the one team that did not make the playoffs that you were like they were way better than people realize and What's the one team that's in the playoffs that you're like this is not the signs of a playoff team? There wasn't really a team like that this year that didn't make the playoffs But was really good the closest is Jacksonville who finished 10th but they almost made the playoffs and they faded at the end. I mean, the chargers were a little higher than you might expect. And the other way around, there weren't really any bad teams that made the playoffs.

The lowest team in DVOA that made the playoffs was Tampa Bay at 18. So none of the teams that were 20th or below made the playoffs this year. It's actually kind of a weird year like that. Usually there's like something like last year's Vikings and Giants, bad teams that make it anyway. And there are really good teams that don't make it because they don't have a good enough record. And this year that didn't happen. Okay.

Okay. What about what about against the spread? I would like to harness the power of your brain for financial gain. If you look at the first round matchups, is there one where the spread doesn't really line up with what the numbers say? Yeah, the biggest one for me is Philadelphia and Tampa Bay. I actually, in my projections,

I have Tampa Bay very, very slightly favored. Oh, okay. And I believe the line is Philadelphia by two and a half. Yeah, it is. If you look at the weighted numbers, right, to give more weight to recent games, Tampa Bay is 15th. Philadelphia is 21st.

They've just completely fallen apart. And I mean, it's not ridiculous to think Philadelphia can win, but I mean, I think it's kind of a 50-50 shot. And so given the line, I would take Tampa, or I'd buy the extra half a point and take Tampa plus three. So when you say weighted, like this is accounting for the team you're playing

because if you're playing a bad team, you're obviously gonna have more successes. But it counts for the game situation I would assume. Like, you know, blow out, you throw out those fourth quarter. I down, I down weight a plays into the fourth quarter and blowouts. Yeah. But when I specifically talk about weighted DVOA, that means weighted towards the end of the season. Okay.

Okay. That's all right. That's what that makes sense. I'm an idiot. You did say that. So in terms of these playoff teams We like what are what are some red flags for certain teams like for example I know the Rams special team is like horrifically bad

So like what are other red flags that you see in your numbers that people maybe don't see or not expecting good or bad Like this team is playing way better than people think or this team this phase of the game they are struggling and this is going to be a red flag for them come January. I mean some of these are things that people know like people know that the packers defense has declined. I think people know that the Texans can't run the ball. I think people know that the chiefs are bad against the run that That's a really interesting one because the dolphins are third running the ball and the chiefs are 27th against the run and you think it's going to be so freezing cold you're going to depend on the run except the dolphins don't that's not a power running

game. It's like a misdirection and speed running game. So I don't know, is that really better in the cold? Right. I don't, you know, that's the Ness running. Yeah, that's the Ness running. The Chiefs have definitely declined in the second half of the season. I think everybody knows that about the offense, but their defense has declined a little bit too in the second half of the season. The Lions were number one in run defense. Oh, which is like, wow, where did that come from? You don't think of them as having the personnel to be really good against the run, and Kyron Williams was really good for the Rams this year, so that's like a really good match-up this year. I also have some numbers that break down players like with blitzes versus not blitzes. For example, uh,

Stroud, CJ Stroud is not as good if you blitz him. And the Browns defense is insanely good when they blitz 3.5 yards per play with a minus 45% DVOA when they blitz. So they should blitz stroud. Okay. What about the Browns offense? It feels like Flacco stepping in. You've seen a lot of the good Flacco. He does have a couple of those interceptions where he'll just say, you know, fuck it and throw it down field. Sometimes it works as almost kind of a punt. So in Flacco's, in his example, in particular, do you wait interceptions based on a 30-yard interception that might backety fence up as opposed to somebody

undercutting like a curl route. Yeah, a good example is Josh Allen this year, right? Josh Allen had a lot of interceptions, but a lot of them were either on fourth down, right? It's incomplete and an interception are no different, or they were like deep interceptions. And yeah, because what I do is I measure interceptions based on where the line of scrimmages and where the ball went,

and what's the average return based on that, right? Because if you throw an interception at the line of scrimmage, those are more likely to be returned as a pick six than if you launch it down field for 40 yards. So yeah, we weigh interceptions based on on how long they go. Okay, so with the Browns, in their case, their defense, as you mentioned, incredible,

especially when they blitz, there often seems to be serviceable. It seems to be doing enough. Is there a historical comparison to these Browns that could tell you that they have the ability to make this a rule? Sure, I mean, a good historical comparison would be the 2000 Ravens. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right? The 2000 Ravens defense is not as good in the regular season as people think it is. Once you adjust for who their opponents were that year, they were fantastic against the

run, but they didn't have a lot of sense. But they had a serviceable offense, and the defense got hot in the playoffs and played better than it had in the regular season and was like insane and the Super Bowl. And they won it all. So I mean, that would be a good comparison for this year's Browns. Do you have, so like I know Ken Palm, who does college basketball analytics, he always has like, here's a list of 10 teams that historically are able to win the title. It's never deviated from that. Do you have a list of teams that they have to be this,

this, and this in the three phases of the game, and we've never had a winner outside of that? Nah, because there have been some weird ones. In the last 20 years, one of the interesting things is I have DVOA going back to 1981. The top teams from 81 to 2000 were more likely to win the Super Bowl than the top teams from 2001 till now. And you've had teams like the 2007 giants and the 2011 giants that if you tried to create some sort of baseline and say you have to be this tall to ride the Super Bowl.

Right. They wouldn't be that tall. Right. Basically. Okay. So it's hard to say that like even the best teams in DVOA don't win the Super Bowl as often as you think they should. A lot of them lost in the divisional round like the 87 49ers and the 2010 Patriots and

the 2019 Ravens who are a little bit of a cautionary tale for Ravens been Yeah, that's interesting. You mentioned the the Niners is being the best team in terms of offensive DVLA What is the best team in terms of defense of DVLA? We have Baltimore number one at Minus 23 and Cleveland number two at minus 21. Okay. So Baltimore, can you talk to us a little bit about Baltimore? Because it seems like their offense is different. It's much different from the 2019 team that you mentioned. So it's interesting because Lamar Jackson was more efficient as a passer in 2019, but film watchers will tell you that he's better as a passer this year.

Like as far as like Progressing office first read and not necessarily scrambling first thing that he's a better passer this year Interesting. Yeah, so the Ravens elite on defense. How is there offense? Their offense was fourth, but that includes the storm game with Tyler Huntsler play a hunter Tyler Huntley playing if you Before week 18. They were second. Okay. All right. Now going back real quick to special teams because I do, I'm always fascinated with it, especially in January, playoff football because it feels like a lot of people forget special

teams and then you see it in playoff football. It's like, here's a miss kick or here's, you know, even like the 49ers, giants, NFC championship game where they fumbled a bunch of punts. So who is the best in the worst special teams units going into these playoffs that we can be like, this is an edge that people aren't probably seeing. The best special teams unit this year was Philadelphia. Oh, okay. Although historically, they were not as good as the best special teams unit usually is, but Jake Elliott, the kicker, is very good. Yep. And the worst by far, by far, was the Rams. Yeah.

Rams were the sixth worst special teams unit in DVOA history, like really bad hunting, putt coverage, and the field goal kicking. I mean, they've changed field goal kickers like 137 times. Yeah. They're special teams like it almost cost them against the giants. It absolutely cost them the game against the Ravens, right? Pant return and it touched down and overtime. Their special teams are terrible. Yeah.

And so would you say like this is, it would be a statistical anomaly. If the, if the Rams figure out a way to win this Super Bowl because in a four game playoff, because they don't have a buy. At some point, that's going to rear its ugly head. It's going to show up and it's going to show up in a bad way. Yeah, I would say it's likely that that will happen at some point along the way. Also their defense is not good. Their defense is like 22nd, right?

So as great as their offense has been for the last few weeks and it has been really good for the last few weeks. Their defense is like 22nd, right? So as great as their offense has been for the last few weeks, and it has been really good for the last few weeks, the defense is mad and the special teams are terrible. And it's really hard to make it through four wins like that. Yeah. So the Lions run defense. You said it's number one, which that's very surprising to me to hear, because I know their defense is bad, but maybe their past defense is just astronomically bad. So what maybe their past defense is just astronomically bad. So what is their past defense right? Their past defense is 16th on the season, but it's 25th since week 10.

Okay. Oh, all right. Gary Jacobs in particular just fell apart. Okay. Okay. In terms of like an underrated individual player in these playoffs, somebody that might not be, you know, household name superstar, but is there somebody that jumps out to you as being like, hey, statistically, this guy is actually playing very, very well right now.

Oh, that's tough. Because a lot of the players that are coming to mind are guys that everybody knows. I mean, I think not everybody knows how good Kyron Williams was this year, the Rams running back. I think people don't realize how good Levantay David, the linebacker from Tampa Bay, still is. We have a stat that we keep called the feats, which is a comp basically means splash plays, turnovers, tackles for loss, plays that prevent our third or fourth down conversion. And David is like in the top five every year of his career. And this year he's like six or seven,

even though he's older, like he's still really, really good. That's a, that's a good one that people don't have come to mind. Can we talk real quick now full disclosure? We are big Josh Allen guys friends with him. We get criticized a lot because people watch the game and he does have one or two interceptions feels like a game where people like he stinks. We don't think he stinks. What are your numbers say in terms of how Josh Allen is overall taking into account that he will turn the ball over? Yeah. So I have a very interesting history with Josh Allen

because the method that we use to project quarterbacks from college hated him. And at my old site, we said some mean things about him when he was a prospect and said that he basically had a 2% chance to become good. And he did. Yeah, really good. I love what you're able to, you're like, my numbers said, yeah, yeah, you didn't say it. Yeah, I mean, I said it and Rivers McCown wrote mean things about him in our book. And like he, he won, man, he came out and was awesome. And he absolutely is awesome, despite the interceptions. Like I said, the interceptions that Alan throws are for the most part not as bad because they tend to be downfield or on fourth down. And

we don't talk about the fact that he had the lowest sac rate of any quarterback this year, right? Those are negative plays too. And he doesn't take a lot of sacs. So like he was in quarterback value. I think we had him third this year and total quarterback value, including passing and running or he may have been second and unlike Brock Purdy, he's not helped by the scheme and the teammates in the same way. There's this general sense that you plug anyone into San Francisco's offense and they wouldn't be as good as Purdy, but they'd be good. Right. And that's not true of the Buffalo offense. And so Alan does so much more of it on his own.

It's a really interesting thing at the top of the league right now because you have this group of quarterbacks that are definitely helped along by scheme and talent to a goth Purdy. And then you have this group of guys who are like, really do it on their own, my homes, Alan, Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott. Oh, that's, that's interesting. So yeah, we're going to clip this and just in the shoved this in everyone's face. Next time Josh throws an interception because this is, is good to know because it does feel like those quarterbacks that can win in spite sometimes are the ones that are winning soup bowls where it's like they can they can kind of carry everyone It's not

They're there. They're doing a good job, but if things start to fall apart they fall apart pretty quickly as well Yeah, I mean digs declined a little bit this year You know and they had arcade, but you look at the receivers that he has right? Look, I don't think the receivers that he has are as good as the receivers that Lamar Jackson has in Baltimore when everybody's healthy. Right. Yeah. Right. He has Odell Beckham and he has Zay flowers and he has Bateman and you know, when Andrews is healthy and likely is pretty good. And you know, Buffalo, he's got Kincaid and he's got digs, but Diggs declined a little bit this year. And Shakira's, you know, has his talents, but he's not like a great receiver. And Gabe Davis is pretty, pretty, so yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We always talk about flipping the switch, which teams can like

flip that switch in the playoffs. And it feels like the chiefs always get discussed in that conversation, except for this year. This year, everyone has kind of written them off. Is there a historical example of a team that's able to just flip the switch, get from really bad to really good without, I'm not talking about adding like a key player, or having a key player come back from injury at a time. Is there an example of a team just like turning it on in the playoffs?

Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of examples in history of teams that didn't have their best regular season in the year they won a championship. A really good example is the 2012 Ravens. Like the 2012 Ravens were better in the regular season in the years before and after that year, but Flacco got hot and their defense played much better in the playoffs than it had in the regular season. And they flipped the switch and they went on a run and they won the whole thing. Yeah.

So it absolutely happens like as much as my numbers love the Ravens and 49ers ahead of everyone else. There's definitely a chance that one of these other teams does it that they flip the switch and they just go on a four game run where they play really well and they win it all. What's your favorite like statistical anomaly like that in terms of super past Superbowl winners, where you're like, did you actually know that this Superbowl winner like they were their defense was not elite and they did they did flip the switch. I mean, I'm a Patriots fan.

So my favorite not as good Superbowl winner is the 2001 Patriots. That's, you know, that was very early in my football fandom days, and it was a wonderful experience. They had never won before, and Boston hadn't won a title in anything in years, that was fantastic. The team that really stands out though is the 2008 Arizona Cardinals, even though they didn't win it all at the end, because that team is the worst DVOA team to ever make the Super Bowl. In part because they played a game in the snow in New England late in the season, where they got killed by like 40 points. Like I always think of it as the game where the Patriots won by so much that I went out to shovel snow

in the second half and didn't even watch it because the game was so one-sided. And yet Arizona bounced back and made it to the Super Bowl and nearly won the Super Bowl. It also is a game that probably made Kurt Warner hate outdoor football. Yeah, he wants to dome everywhere. And now it makes sense, yeah. Okay, so this is all fascinating.

You mentioned you do some draft stuff. Like I know you probably aren't finished with everything, but right now, like Caleb Williams, Drake, May, Jaden Daniels, what are your numbers saying in terms of success? Haven't done any of it yet. Okay. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for you.

I do know that the film people that I tend to trust are higher on Jaden Daniels than I think the rest of the public is right now. Okay. And I know that it matters that Michael Penix is olderenex is older. Right? Like the fact that he's what has he played six years in college? Like that matters when you compare him to a guy who's got three or four years because the the amount of development space that he has at the NFL is going to be less because he's coming into the legal order. Right. Okay. Interesting. So what is what's the next

stat up? What's the number that mean big catch get should know and talk about so that we can feel smarter than everybody else. I mean, everything that NFL next gen stats is doing is pretty awesome. And I love Sam Schwartzstein and the Thursday night Amazon Prime next gen stats broadcast. And the big data bull competition this year is about tackling and trying to measure tackling better and just number of tackling. So there's going to be some really interesting stuff that comes out of that during the combine. The other stat I would say is Kevin Cole, who used to work for Prof. Paul Focus and now does his own thing called unexpected points on sub-stack, has a really cool plus-minus metric that's based on like grouping players,

it's complicated statistical analysis, but allows him to compare the value of players at different positions to each other, including like offensive, comparing offensive linemen to skill players when you're talking about offensive player of the year, which is very hard to do. So I would say to check out Kevin's blog, unexpected points, and his plus minus step. That is a pretty awesome step.

Yeah, I like the idea of that. So we could actually end up in a world where we could put Trent Williams next to Patrick Mahomes and say, like, which is the better player? Yeah, although, first of all, quarterbacks just because they touch the ball in every play. Quarterbacks will always come out as the most valuable players in the league. And this year, Penais Suil. He has Penais Suil as the top offensive lineman, partly because Williams missed a couple of games. Yeah.

Okay. What about quarterback wins? Actually, I'll adjust that question a little bit What about can you talk about quarterback rating the quarterback rating system that we've all grown up with Goes up to 158.3. I think as the perfect game. Do they just invent that are they is there some guy that's just watching TV And he's like that feels like a hundred forty seven game what goes into quarterback rating and is it a valuable stat for anybody to pay? Yeah, the problem with quarterback rating is that it is built to measure quarterbacks in the 1970s, not quarterbacks now. And the game has changed.

Quarterbacks have higher completion rates, lower yards per attempt. They throw fewer interceptions. So the like numbers, the way the numbers working quarterback rating, that's why when you look at lists of best quarterback rating ever It's like Steve Young and then all modern quarterbacks, right? Because it's not designed to it's not designed to measure Modern quarterbacks and on top of that it doesn't include sacks and it doesn't include rushing and it's not adjusted for opponent So there's a lot of reasons why other advanced stats are better to use than pasture rating. What's the best team to lose

the Super? I assume it would be the 18 and one Patriots, but what's the second best team then just so we can give a ring to someone some fan base that should have deserved one. The second best team that lost the Super Bowl, I know the second best team that didn't, the best team that didn't make it to the Super Bowl is the 2010 Patriots who lost to the jets in the divisional round in the West Wilkert joked about Rex Ryan's foot fetish and got suspended for the first quarter game. I think that the best team in DVOA that lost the Super Bowl is the 1983 Washington Redskins. Oh, look at it. There we go. That's another thing. That's what I think. I love it. The team that lost to the Raiders, but they were like really, really good during the regular season.

And that was a very surprise. That was a really surprising super bowl. Yeah. I think Marcus Ellen just ran through her face in that game. Yeah. Hunter S. Thompson wrote a whole thing about it. It was painful. Um, what's the best team?

I think I know the answer to this, actually, but what's the best team in terms of DVOA that has not even made the playoffs. Going back to 1981, the best team that missed the playoffs was the 2004 Buffalo Bill. Oh, we thought it was going to be the chargers where they were number one and number. I think they were number one. They were really good on offense and defense and their special teams cost it. Yeah. No, because in part because I'm measuring special team. Right.

The best teams that missed the playoffs are the 2004 bills. And then like a bunch of those Dick Vermeel chiefs years. Huh. Interesting. That's interesting. Else they were number one in defense and special teams that year. They went into week 17 and all they had to do was beat the Pittsburgh backups to make the playoffs. And they couldn't do it. They lost to Tommy Maddox and Willard Park. Oh, so what about the Steelers this year? The Steelers, I feel like they broke everybody's brain because they, you know, they were getting outgain

and they were finding a way to win games somehow. They had inconsistent quarterback play, inconsistent offense just across the board in general. But what do your stats tell you about the more recent version of the Pittsburgh Steelers? Are they a legit playoff team? Do they deserve to be in these playoffs? Yeah, they do.

DVOA likes Pittsburgh more than other metrics do this year. In part because the opponent adjustments, they played a really, really hard schedule of defenses in the first half when their offense sucks so bad. So overall for the season, they actually come out 15th on offense and then sixth on defense. So they're definitely like in that grouping with like Cincinnati and Jacksonville missing the playoffs, but Houston and Green Bay making the playoffs. And they're definitely a legit playoff team. They're a legit 10 and seven. It's not, it's not like they're like 25th and snuck in somehow. Yeah, they're going up against the bills nine and a half point underdogs.

Yeah, was that about right? Yeah, with TJ Watt out, I mean, if you ask me who I would take in that game, I would take Steelers plus nine and a half. It's hard to quite quantify just how much it means to lose TJ Watt, but I do feel like because the bills are so inconsistent, there's a reasonable chance that they're going to win, but they're going to win, you know, they're going to make it closer than it needs to be. And that's a pretty big line. But yeah, when you take TJ watt off the Steelers and the fact is pick it was a little bit better than Rudolph. Once you would once you

adjust for the schedule, we've been saying that. Yeah, we have. These two are not quite as good. Yeah, I think we're earlier in here. So this has been fascinating, Aaron. We really appreciate your time. I have one last question. It's a rowback question, r-o-b-a-c-k-k.com, promo code take, 20% off your first purchase, QZIPs, Polo's, Hoodies, Joggers, shorts.

We definitely gonna have you back on because I could listen to these numbers and an explanation of the game all day. So my last question to you is, we know the Ravens and the 49ers. What are your numbers say as the team that the third team that's like, Hey, this team, people are maybe not talking about them because it is all Ravens 49ers right now. We do that a lot with the one seed, but what is that third team? The number two teams in each conference are pretty clearly Buffalo and Dallas. Okay.

Well, that's not just the number two seeds, but the number two teams by both DVOA and weighted towards the end of the season, DVOA are definitely Buffalo and Dallas. So if somebody's going to win this thing other than San Francisco or Baltimore, it's probably going to be Buffalo or Dallas. And there's a good chance that Dallas breaks that ridiculous streak of not making it to conference championship game since 1995 or whatever. Yeah, that would be quite the super boy. Oh my God. That would be incredible. Yeah. I almost feel bad for Bill's fans in advance of that. Yeah. That would be that would be tough to mentally get ready for that. I talked to a Cowboys guy did a Cowboys podcast and they were talking about what would be the most emotionally

Satisfying path for the Cowboys and he was like we want to go to the Super Bowl and play the bills again Like you want that's that's meaningful to Cowboys fans. They want the bills again That's mean. Yeah, that is like what the heck you don't that's not that's not satisfying You've already gotten your satisfaction. I mean, the satisfaction thing I would assume would be to beat the Ravens or to beat the maybe the chief speed Patrick Mahomes. And that's what I thought was to beat the Ravens because the Ravens were so good this year, but he felt like it would be more meaningful because the history that they have. That's so mean. That's chicken shit on Dallas. Yeah. He just knows the win because just

history tells us they'll win. All right. Well, Aaron, knows the win because just history tells us the win. All right, well, Aaron, thank you so much. We really appreciate it, man. Everyone go follow me. A shots at NFL on Twitter, the FTN fantasy network. So thanks so much. We appreciate it. And it was great talking to you. Yeah, man. It was really great to do the show. FT-T-N fantasy dot com slash DVOA. That's where you find all my stuff and then like you said, Twitter and threads and all the social networking sites. Awesome. Thanks, Aaron. Aaron Chats is brought to you by Peloton. You can forget the noise and pressure around fitness at New Year's. Start in a way that works for you. I didn't know that Peloton was coming back as an advertiser this week. I got back on the Peloton two days ago. I want two-day streak getting back in the swing of things,

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He talked to every female in his life and apologize in advance. He talked to his family and then he just talked, yeah, he talked to God. Yeah, he's like, Lord, forgive me for what I'm about to do, but this, this fat bastard is just too fat. Yeah, it was incredible. Just went in on him. And Jason Wentlock is like, Stephen A Smith didn't play college basketball or something? I don't know.

Yeah, Jason had a lot of things to say about Stephen A Smith. Yeah, so, uh, credit Stephen A Smith for holding this song all these years and then just unloading. Oh, he also, he called like the ESPN executives and said, yeah, hey, just so you know, you pre-apologize. I'm sorry if we're about to say, but man, it was a good podcast.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Hank, fire fest. Yeah, my fire fest is that I am not going to Dallas this weekend. I don't know. I was invited. You can. You guys gave me permission.

I looked at flights that are expensive. The weather's a little wonky. Also the hotel factor, you don't have anywhere to stay. I was worried about getting out and getting back. They want to miss too much work. It was a Sunday. I always kind of said if it was a Saturday I'd go. And then the fact that it was a Sunday game kind of threw off my plans. Yeah, you would never miss work. No, and I'm doing dry January. I'm locked in. I'm preparing for the standup. I'm training and practicing my routine very hard. So I don't want to ruin that by going to Dallas, getting wasted, doing the whole thing.

It's going to be a blow game anyway. What's the whole thing? Just going to blow out who? The Cowboys are going to blow out the Packers. Oh, OK. Cowboys are going to win next Saturday. Backdoor cover. Being Dallas.

Now it's going to be cover to cover. cover next Saturday being Dallas. That's the plan if the game is next Saturday if the game when the game is next Saturday Okay, well, it's like it's Okay, sorry All right, PFT we're rooting for yank. Yeah For the Cowboys for you personally actually. Yeah, I am I was this week. Thank you. I'm not I'm 100% rooting for the Cowboys? For you personally. Actually, yeah, I am. For the Cowboys this week. Thank you. I'm not.

I'm 100% room for the Cowboys this week. My fire fest is pretty simple. Blake has diarrhea. And so I haven't been sleeping much the last couple nights because in the middle of the night he'll just wake me up because he's whining. And so I have to let him outside. And then I have to sit there.

And the worst part about it is it's very cold outside. So you let him out. And then you have to keep checking on them and he just gets in that stance. You know, like, you know, the, the, the biggest stance. And he's already shit out everything that he can. He's trying to shit out more and he won't come inside. And so I have to just stand there in my pajamas

out on the porch being like, come on Blake, you're not shit anymore, there's nothing there. But he's okay. He's fine. I'm so sorry that you're that you didn't get to sleep to the night. Yeah, I know. It stinks.

Can you imagine waking up in the middle of the night because something that you take care of has to poop? It's the fucking worst. My son has a bathroom in his room, and he shares it with his brother, but he comes in at three in the morning every single night because he says he likes my bathroom more. Yeah, it's probably better.

But yeah, Blake is like, I like your bathroom more. My bathroom stinks, but he just, he likes it. You know what the crazy thing is? Is Blake doesn't have diarrhea during the day. You gotta just not, like it sucks, but you just gotta not feed your dog for a day. Not feed him for a day. That's the only way.

It's rice and just don't give any food for a day. Yeah, he's just got an upset Tommy. And then it's just, you hear the first wine and you're like, okay, I'm gonna be up for the only way. It's rice and just don't give any food for a day. Yeah, you just get an upset tummy. And then it's just, you hear the first wine and you're like, okay, I'm gonna be up for the next hour. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah, I feel bad for you. Yeah. My fire fest, I'm not gonna clay Travis myself here

because thankfully my daughter doesn't have this but I forgot totally about Lice. There's a Lice outbreak here to school. I completely forgot that Lice exists. Yeah, how come we haven't figured that out? I don't know. I like, I got the email and I was like, wait, fuck.

Oh yeah, Lice. Everybody had a so scared back in elementary school. Like don't share a hat with somebody. Don't put your backpack in a sandbox. Sand, like Lice can live in sand. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, so that was the big thing. Like if you put anything in a sandbox, the L, Lice can live in sand. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, so that was the big thing. Like, if you put anything in a sandbox,

the Lice can jump around in there. What do you have to do if they get Lice? Do you shave their heads? No, I think you just got to get the special soap. Okay, yeah, I think they have soap, but I just, did you guys remember Lice exists? No, I forgot about Lice. That's just another thing I gotta worry about.

Lice. Yeah, fucking Lice canter garden. Of course you did. You probably have Lice right now. You sick off. I mean, you're the one who's gonna bring Lice to this office. Oh, I. Of course you did. You probably have Lice right now, you sick off. I mean, you're the one who's gonna bring Lice to this office. I'm gonna start doing headbutts with the phone. I was thinking a Lice out.

Outrage of parcel sports would be very fun. Oh, that would actually go to my daughters. It would be very fun. I should go to her school and just start, you know, just rubbing my head on every kid. That'd be good. Yeah, you should do that. That'd be weird. But yeah, should do that. That'd be weird.

But yeah, Lice exists. I had no idea. I thought that was something we fixed. Like, chicken box don't exist anymore. Yeah, they all get the shot. Right. I have a scar. I'm love my eyebrow.

For what? Chicken box. Oh, yeah, but like that, we figured that one out. Yeah. Polio doesn't exist anymore. Is there a Lice vaccine? I, how the fuck do you have when you got rid of Lice? I don't know.

Someone figure it out. Lice should not How the fuck do you have when you got rid of Lice? I don't know. Someone figure it out. Lice should not be a thing anymore. Fuck Lice. Someone's gonna be like, well, the ecosystem or something. Yeah, when Lice do their pariset. No, they do nothing. How do they even start?

Where do you get them from? No, no. Where do they start? When a Louse grow in little kids here? When a Louse and another Louse love each other very much. They make baby lice That's where the term louse he comes from Louse me yeah, cuz an individual lice is a louse and so if you say someone's louse he means you're dirty

Lice your musty lice are fucking gross pieces of shit. Yeah, fuck lice. What anti-lice podcast? Lice or bed bugs. One's gotta go. Bed bugs. Bed bugs. Yeah, it's a bad bug. There's lice really. They are just like a little kid's problem. Yeah, bed bugs can be a million times more. And I think it's a very easy solution. I think you have to put that shampoo in like twice. Yeah, did you see that?

There was somebody I think they went viral on TikTok that went across Europe and they were just spreading bedbugs. Like a real-life joker. They were just checking the hotels and then put bedbugs on the mattress. That's all they're like an outbreak in Paris or something? Yeah, yeah, it's because this one person, this one asshole. Jeez. Nothing good reason not to go to France. I'm looking at Lice right now.

They're gross. Fucking gross. All right, Jake. Um, so my firefests is I'm going to be at a wedding during the dolphin game, but I might not be because I might be stuck here because of this no storm. Yeah, so welcome to Chicago. You can now. It's either a canceled flight or watching the dolphin game at what? Yeah, I'm beginning to understand why people get fat. It's just you you don't go anywhere. Yeah, we got a week coming up. It's gonna suck. In the winter time, it's like you stay inside,

you eat food, you drink beer. But we don't really have an excuse as we work in a gymnasium. It's true. That is the one thing that like, if we worked in our old office with the weather we're gonna have next week, I would be very upset, but I,

like when I get upset, I'm like, oh, let me just shoot some threes. Monday, one Tuesday high of negative two. Yeah, so shoot some threes. Yeah, just shoot some threes. Okay, good show boys tight show. Very tight. Oh, Do we have enough time to talk about Eagles box? Waterball. He does on time. He does on time. Three hours.

40. Eight. 71. 18. 20. Three. 21. 99 Pug.

Come on Pug. 43. 43. By the way, I was at the Blackhawk game on Tuesday night and we had taped earlier and I hope that the AWLs who I met, they're like, they try, they guess a lottery ball is like tell your friends 10. I hope they got money off that. I should start, we should start trading that early. Just a secret society where we just tell people, yeah, that's good, that's good. Love you guys. What? Don't get away.

I don't know what I'm saying. I'm saying it anyway. Today's a not day. They're not even shy away. I'm looking at me for your lover. I'm looking at you. Shining away. I'm looking at me for your lover. I'm looking at you. Let's on me Shine on me I'm the kind of boy you love on me

Let's say I want to say it It's a piece of a little weight Shine on me I'm the kind of baby Let's say I'm the kind of baby Let's say I'm the kind of baby Let's say I'm the kind of baby Let's say I'm the kind of baby

Come on, baby I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man Don't leave me Don't leave me Now you are the same Where do you love the same? Is it love? Don't love me You're all in love Do you remember? You're shining It, you're all alone

You're shining like a rock, you're dead and you're all alone You're shining like a rock, you're dead and you're all alone J.O.N.S. F.O.N.S. F.O.N.S. F.O.N.S. F.O.N.S. F.O.N.S. F.O.N.S. F.O.N.S. F.O.N.S. F.O.N.S. F.O.N.S.

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