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10 Takes with Kyle Brandt: A great weekend of football

Published Jan 22, 2024, 4:32 PM

Can you squeeze everything from this Divisional round in 10 minutes? Let's find out: 

  • Spent from good football, at least no ref controversies!
  • Mahomes is inevitable and we found Kelce
  • The Bills aren't evolving
  • Lamar Jackson needed this
  • An early Lions prediction
  • Meeting Jack Black
  • Sneaking in an extra take at the end?

 

Ten Takes is a production of the NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. Welcome to ten Takes. I'm spent. I'm spent emotionally, physically. The best weekend of football all year. It just fried me. And yet I'm getting that second wind and where I'm just ready to talk about it. I better be already did it for three hours on TV today. Now I get to talk to you guys. Let's just get into it. Best weekend of the year. Ten takes and ten minutes. Start the clock. Take number one, Bill Chiefs this year was better than the Bill Chiefs thirteen second game. It was better than the overtime game. I'd loved this game from start to finish. I think it was cleaner, I think it was better football. There were no interceptions thrown, there were no sacks. There was only seven penalties combined, which you'll take. Can we all just thank the lords right now that we're not sitting here this morning talking about some wow theficiating controversy that happened in any of these games. It's great. I thought this one was better, though, a lot of the stuff that happened in the thirteen second game and the meltdown by the Bills. Was bad football, was really bad defensive football for them, and then there's all this controversy about the coin toss and whatnot. This is just a really good football game between two really good teams, and the better team won. I'd loved this game from start to finish. I'd love the weird twists and turns. I mean, you could go through and talk about it for twenty minutes and not even mention DeMar Hamlin was running a fake punt what or that the Chiefs bubbled out the back of the end zone and ended up not burning them. And then DeMar Facott punt didn't burn the Bills either, the field goal, the tragedy, everything. I loved this game so much. It was two great teams, great great NFL product, just awesome. Was that a great game. I would rewatch that game like i'd rewatch a movie, just to put it on. Six weeks from now, six months from now, six years from now. I would watch Bills Chiefs in January twenty twenty four, just enjoy it. Take number two Mahomes is inevitable. It's an amazing thing because you get tongue tied when you're trying to say all right, Shoot, I gotta praise Mahomes again. I've kind of done that for years. What can I do now? I just think it is so unbelievable that he only plays title game seasons at worst. That's it. That's the streak that I want to remember Mahomes by years and years from now, when I'm a grandfather or he's retired, that he didn't. He doesn't do lose in the divisional rounds. It just doesn't. It's not what he does, never mind the wild card round. He doesn't even ever bow out in the divisional It's almost as if it's his contract or his agreement written in blood with the football gods. Just know, I never ever lose earlier than the title game round. I don't always win the title game, but I always get to it. I usually host it, I always play in it. It is like a concert performer or a headliner who only does stadiums, not arenas, not amphitheaters. I'm so big and so good, and it's just such a badass. I only play the largest possible venue in every city that I go to. Mahomes' only title games. We've talked dad nauseum this week about oh I never played a road game, no, not a true road game in the playoffs. He's never lost in the divisional round, and he was probably mad this year because he actually had to play in the wild card round when one again, it's just an amazing testament to him and how good he is. Take number three, Kelsey showed up big time man. Travis Kelsey hadn't scored a touchdown, which felt like months, and you know why because it was months. And sure enough, big game, bright lights, cold atmosphere, unfriendly crowd, Bam, right out of the gates, long touchdown, Bam, another one of these old Andy Reid bag of tricks, touchdown on something called flash screen. The second touchdown Travis Kelsey run. They hadn't run that place since Alex Smith was the quarterback that predates Mahomes, which goes back to twenty seventeen somewhere around there, and they did it. You know, I had been on Kelsey. I've been taking pot shots and cracking jokes and the way I do harmlessly is just to bus chops that he really hadn't shown up much this year, and I'm like, is he hurt? Is he old? Is he falling apart? And then you put them against buffal He just kills them. You have to respect it. Just kills them, absolutely kills them. Take number four. The Bills aren't growing, They're not evolving. This is the same deal over and over, division round loss, division round loss. They're Chiefs that they play every year. The Chiefs have been to six title games. The Bills have been to one, and in that title game that got hammered by the Chiefs. This is the cold, hard reality if you're if you're not evolving, you're dying. And I look at the Bills right now, a lot of the ways you look at the Cowboys, it's groundhog team. You show up, is an exciting regular season, you have some really talented players, and it's kind of a similar loss. That's what's so deflating. I think about Bills fan this morning. It's not just so we lost in the playoffs again, it's we lost a home game in the playoffs to the team we can't beat, who's playing on the road. For the first time. We did it in a year when Joe Burrow, who's the other guy who really really matters in the AFC playoffs, is completely out, which leaves a gap which I don't think because insignificant, and our kicker missed again and our star wide receiver dropped of huge pass. They're not growing. And Strager was saying this morning and Good Morning Football that there is an incredible club of quarterbacks who are Hall of famers or just generally really respected franchise quarterbacks over years who never even so much has played in a Super Bowl. I'm not talking about Marino or Kelly who got there and didn't win. Warren Moon, Dan Fouts, Philip Rivers, on and on never played in a super Bowl. Is Dason going to be in that club? God, I hope not. I love watching him play, I love a lot of the things he stands for. But this whole take about the Bills can't get over the hump, guys. They can't get to the hump. Getting over the hump is not winning the divisional round. Getting over the hump is winning a super Bowl. They can't even sniff that thing. It's really frustrating. Take number five. They need their super friends, they have Superman. Where's the super Friends. I'm really frustrated with Stefan Diggs this morning because it's the end of a really, really average, underwhelming season and he had another average underwhelming playoff game. Specifically, on the drive that ended in the missfield goal, Josh Allen threw what looked like a two hundred yard pass and Dick's dropped it, and like he's a big play receiver, right, He's made a lot of big plays. He's made a lot of big plays in playoff games. He just dropped it and it just wasn't there this year. So where are they going? They drafted tight end the first round last year, adult cacad He mattered, He'll get better. He's a good player, I promise him. There are they ever gonna say, screw it, We're going to spend their first round pick on a wide receiver and bringing a new guy in here the kicker. Another thing about the kicker, I know that take is out there that's very convenient, and it's very tired, and it's very cliche about Hey, you can't put this all on the kicker. There are a lot of other plays being made. I know that, and I'm not putting it all on the kicker, but you're damn well better be sure I canna put some on the kicker. This is not seventh grade. You're an adult professional, a multi millionaire, who's getting paid a huge paycheck to make kicks to forty four yard are in your home state, even know like the back of your hand, and there was a no doubt miss from the second to hit your laces. I don't want Tyler Bass to be flombayed, but he should take some dude, what the hell happened? It was a terrible kick, really frustrating. You got to play better than that. Take number six. Lamar Jackson needed that, He needed that hit the spot, didn't it. Everything about Lamar is always so contentious in the debate online and his apologists and his defenders and his accusers. You can't do this, can't do that. In the first half, he looked really shaky in a sense. They just didn't score much. And there's a long history that we've been talking about for weeks now of the Ravens under Lamar showing up in playoff games and not only just being flat, but being really terrible and inefficient in the first quarter. Early. It wasn't great in the first half. In that second half, he just leaned back and unleash hell on Houston on every one of his critics. One hundred yards rushing four total touchdowns, just looked really, really good. You don't want Lamar to go down that path where if you were to lose that game or to underwhelm in that game, you start getting this reputation of a really talented player who's great in the regular season and shows up never really amounts to much like the NBA equivalent being Carmelo Anthony Chris Paul for a lot of his career. These guys who did sometimes they'd be first team All NBA and they'd be one and done in the playoffs. Like, you don't want Lamar to do that, and he's not. And now he's at home in the title game. He needed that and he got it. Take number seven. I think the Lions are gonna win the NFC title game. I have a prediction right now Monday morning. I think they're gonna win that game. I really like the Lions team. I really like Golf. The storyline is going to be big. He's the first pick in the draft rock Porty. He was the last pick in the draft. Golf is going back to where he played college ball and became the number one pick in the draft at Cal. He's going to a stadium in San Francisco. He's incredibly familiar and comfortable with He played there a lot as a Rams quarterback. I just think there's a lot of things that you tout for the Niners, and I think the Lions have an equal answer for them. I really do. McCaffrey's amazing, Gibbs is amazing, Kittle, Laporta, Shanahan, Ben Johnson. I like the Lions in this game because take number eight. The forty nine ers really really need Deebo Samuel. It's a huge deal. If you watch the game, he spent most of it in a sweatshirt on the sideline cheering on his team, wanted to go back in with a shoulder injury and couldn't. Brock Berdy was not great. The Niners kind of survived, whereas the Ravens dominated the other one seed. If they don't have Deebo, they're a totally different team, and I think they will lose to the Lions. I've been wrong predicting against the Niners before. I like what the Lions have going. I like what Campbell is going. But never mind the mojo and the revenge and the chip on the shoulder, the dumb SoundBite. I just really like their players. I really like their talent. I don't know right now if there's a non quarterback player left in the playoffs that has impressed me more in the last couple of weeks than Jamier Gibbs. He flies off the screen man when you're watching him. Damn. He looks like he's fast forward. He looks like he's more talent than anybody out there. I like the Lions next week take number nine. Jack Black is exactly the guy you want him to be. I'm talking about the actor, the rock star of the comedian, Jack Black. School of Rock. I did a promo that I got to do for his Kung Fu Panda movie that's coming out, and I got to meet Jack Black. All I can tell you is he shows up exactly like you want him to. Like, Jack Black, What up? What's up? Kyle? How you doing? Man? Rock and roll? Funny kind of cracking the everybody up in the camera? People up. He's awesome. On set, he was totally loose. They say, don't meet your heroes. That's nonsense. I met Jack Black, one of my favorite celebrities in the world, and he could not have been a cooler, nicer guy. Take that home. I'm not gonna come back and tell you, yeah, Jack Black was that kind of a jerk. He was awesome. Take number ten, Back to the Future. It is really hard to watch with your kids, trying to do what will most of us do and educate our kids and movie each from the nineties and eighties. I had my ten year old watch Back to the Future. He loved the Dolorean, he loved Marty. It's really hard to explain to your ten year old the storyline whereby Marty decides he's going to force himself on his mother to try to get George to save him. Marty, what kind of plan was that? So I'll be sitting in the car with my mom and I'm gonna start putting my hands on her against her will, and then you come save us to what. I know, It's been said before, and I've thought about it before, and I've laughed at it. But when the movie's winding down and you're in that last twenty minutes and your ten year old is really riveted and trying to understand most of the time travel stuff, and he goes, what is Marty doing and what is he telling George? Never mind, let's just fast forward to get to it. I don't even want to explain it to you. It's just a ridiculous plan. I went over. I'm not supposed to do that. I'm breaking my own rules. That's ten minutes. That's ten takes with a little bonus Marty McFly incredulous parenting take. I love you guys. Thank you guys. The next time I speak to you, guys, we're gonna know our Super Bowl matchup. I'll tell you right now. I think it is going to be Lions Chiefs. I do, which means I think both road teams are going to win. I might be wrong. It might be Niners Ravens and we'll celebrate the one seeds and that'll be really cool and really fun and exciting. It doesn't happen to all that often. I think it's gonna be Lions Chiefs in Las Vegas. That's a bonus take. That was like a twelve or thirteen take. I gotta stop stop talking, Brant. You said ten takes in ten minutes. I'm out here, see you guys next week. Ten Takes is a production of the NFL in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more iHeartRadio pods, go to the iHeartRadio app. Go to Apple go anywhere you like, it'll be there.