John returns after an action-packed NFL Wild Card Sunday capped by sensational rookie QB Jayden Daniels leading the Washington Commanders to a 23-20 win over Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday Night Football. John salutes the Commanders, led by potential NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, for winning their first playoff game since 2005 in the most exciting game of the NFL playoff weekend. Middlekauff tips his cap to the Commanders ownership and coaching staff for turning around one of the NFL’s worst organizations, and explains that Jayden Daniels is a superstar in the making. Next, John breaks down Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers valiant effort in a close playoff loss, detailing why the former No. 1 Overall pick and Heisman Trophy winner left it all on the field this season. After, John looks ahead to the Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs and briefly previews Commanders vs. Lions, Ravens vs. Bills and Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs facing off against the Houston Texans. Then, John blasts the media for a barrage of puff pieces on high-profile coordinators like Brian Flores, Kliff Kingsbury and other former failed head coaches in the NFL carousel. After, John takes a look at the AFC vs. NFC and suggests that there’s NO WAY you would pick the field against the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills or Baltimore Ravens to hoist the Lombardi Trophy. Finally, thoughts on Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers, Justin Herbert and the Los Angeles Chargers, the dumpster-fire New York Jets and the College Football Playoff’s National Championship between the Ohio State Buckeyes and Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
5:40 - Commanders at Bucs reaction
27:48 - Chiefs, Ravens, or Bills vs the field. Who are you taking?
31:29 - Wild Card weekend head scratching moments
37:42 - What are the Jets doing?
45:11 - Notre Dame and Ryan Day's resilience
Follow John on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube for the latest. #Volume #Herd
The volume. Okay, what is going on everybody? The Washington Commanders win a playoff game for the first time in two decades, first win in twenty years. Walk off field goal that was it hit the pylon. Now it hit the inside, so it had a good track to bounce in beat Baker Mayfield, Todd Bowles and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A lot I want to get into in this game. I thought Baker was really good beside the one fumble. Obviously, Jaden's a star the franchise. It's amazing how important ownership is. And overall that game was something we desperately needed because this weekend you talk about a snooze fan. Holy shit, it was terrible. I wrote down just some WTF moments of the weekend, and I want to dive in from the Jets, who are just maybe they're trying to break a record to see how many total coaches and gms that they can interview. You look at the Patriots, they interviewed three people, then immediately hire vaybel knocked out the Rooney Roll variable here's your contract. Let's roll had a clear intention of what they were doing. These other teams. The Jets fired Robert Soahl and Joe Douglas like three months ago. I just I'm baffled at what's going on. But that's what happens when you hire, you know, consultants who everyone wants their hand in the cookie jar. Just what are we doing here to just some things we saw in the Green Bay Philadelphia game. You know, there's a pile on effect when people question you and you lose an ugly game. The the internet pile on job on Harbaugh and Herbert makes me laugh. But we'll dive into some of that stuff as well as one quick thing I did want to hit on when it comes to the National Championship Notre Dame and Ohio State. Something I think both programs have in common just based on this season that they can relate. And I think it's two moments, one for each team that really propelled them to be in this National Championship that if you're listening to this on Monday, we are a week away from that. So I went out with Colin as I do every Sunday, you know, so we discussed heavily. We went on right after the Eagles kind of smothered the Packers, who I don't remember at least I'm sure it's happened, but it felt like they lost ten guys today and they were losing a guy every series in the second half and important players the Eagles who lost Nakobe Dean, their starting linebacker to a knee injury, which is not ideal. But yeah, big win in Philly this morning. Was pretty boring game Buffalo. Now we get Buffalo Ravens, you know, next week, pretty good slate. You know, obviously Houston. They love putting Houston in that first game on a Saturday, and Houston playing Kansas City, which is going to be a challenge. Then the night games Washington at Detroit. Then the morning game will be the Eagles against the winner of the Monday night football game in Philadelphia, and then Sunday we get the heavyweight matchup of Josh Allen versus Lamar, which is gonna be a conversation we're gonna have all weekend long. So yeah, let's dive into some football. Okay, two things before we dive in to the meat of the game. One consistent theme that we're talking a lot about when it comes to a lot of these teams looking at coaches and gms and people to hire, has been ownership, in the importance of ownership, and how you have no chance to win with incompetent ownership. The people that signed the checks really set the tone for the entire building, even though they aren't the ones picking the players, coaching the players, scouting the players, implementing the scheme, running the meetings, like they don't do anything football wise, but there is a direct correlation of good ownership winning teams, bad ownership bad teams, Like we have a lot of data now and the commanders and listen, my three years in the NFL were in the NFC East, and during that time it was like the peak of Dan Snyder, who was a laughingstock. And I worked with Lewis Ridick, who now that you see on television, who when I got there, had worked for Dan Snyder for years and at one point in time they were really close. So I got a lot of good inside scoop when it came to Dan Snyder. And for whatever reason, when I first got there, they were terrible. Then they made a splurge at Mike Shanahan and they had that coaching staff that's pretty legendary, and they the one year with RG three, but for the most part that franchise has been a complete shit show forever. They sell the team, they get Josh Harris. He blows every incompetent, moron, idiot, loser out of the building and hires real football people. So they get Dan Quinn, they get Adam Peters, and those guys obviously know what they're doing. But if you put Dan Quinn and Adam Peters with Dan Snyder, there is no way this team wins twelve games in the second round of the playoffs. We have the data that never happened with Dan Snyder. So Josh Harris, who pretty polarizing guy in the sense that he owns the Philadelphia seventy six Ers and the Washington Commanders, we haven't quite got a crazy overlap, but we are a week away. If somehow the Commanders play the Philly play the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship Game, I would not want to be Josh Harris, and listen, I'm not a huge Daryl Mory guy. But it can't really be argued that Josh Hare's a good owner. He gives you the funds to do whatever you need to do, and he supports the infrastructure of his coaches. Obviously, his players and his front offices, and that is something this franchise has not had the last twenty plus years of Daniel Snyder, which I always thought was insane, because Daniel Snyder was not handed this team like a Mark Davis or like a George McCaskey, where his dad owned the team and just gave it to him. He was a self made billionaire. He literally did it on his own and honestly, maybe got rich too fast. He became a billionaire in his early thirties and somehow ruined this franchise for a long, long period of time. But it is not random, It is not by accident. It is not a coincidence that they get rid of them. They get a guy who is a good owner, hires good people, and they are immediately successful because this team is not that talented. Obviously, the quarterback very talented player, Zach Ertz is like thirty eight years old. Terry McLaurin is a really good player. They got a couple solid defensive tackles. Bobby Wagner's been in the NFL forever. They trade for Latimore, who for the most part has been injured. Like, this is not a team you watched tonight. Tampa Bay has way more high end impact players on their team. If you just take Baker and Jayden away from the two teams. Baker obviously he's a Pro Bowl level throwing forty touchdowns. Jaden one of the more dynamic rookies. Let's just remove them and you go who has more high end players. It's Tampa Bay. Yet they're well coached. Clearly, they're tough, and there is a level of mental toughness to this franchise that did not exist under Dan Snyder. And I truly believe this. It starts at the top. I've worked for one NFL team and the owner is pretty I would say there's a supportive nature. It's not random that the Eagles have been successful since Jeffrey Lurie has owned the team. And I think if you're a Washington Commander fan, whether you lose this next round against the Lions by twenty points, whether it's a close game, you win, regardless what happens the rest of the season, it's already been a major success. It's about the future. How excited, like, are we a real franchise? Are we a team that's gonna be good every single year? And my response would be probably yes, I don't know, like if you're gonna win Super Bowls or how good you're gonna be, Like obviously won twelve wins or twelve games this year. I think we'd all agree it's it's probably more like a nine or ten win season. But with a rookie starting quarterback with a brand new administration, it's incredible accomplishment. And the like I say this about the Chargers and the Denver Broncos all the time, this is the worst team they're gonna have, And I would say this about Adam Peters and Dan Quinn this is gonna be the worst team they have. So congratulations for just becoming a real franchise because under Dan Snyder they simply were not. They were like the Bears, they were like the Jags, they were like the Raiders, just a consistent, laughingstock joke, a team that other good teams circled to be, like when they cut that guy or when that guy becomes available for trade, we want them. And now you're a playoff team where the future couldn't be any brighter. And just before we dive into the media, this game overall, you know, during football season, right from the start of football season up until week eighteen. There are so many games every day on Saturday and Sunday, so if you do have a clunker or something boring, there's always something else to watch. And for those of you with YouTube TV, we have a million options. Right usually get the four boxes so you can watch the entertaining game while the shitty games are going on. Obviously, during the playoffs, every single game is a primetime game in the sense that it just gets to isolate, live in a vacuum by itself and you're stuck with it. And I used to love to nap, and in my adult life it's very, very difficult for me to do that, maybe because I drink a ton of coffee, but unless I am severely hungover, I cannot sleep during the middle of the day anymore. It's something I wish I still could do, like I could in my twenties, but definitely in my thirties and headed into my forties. It's just not something I have in the back. But yesterday I fell asleep during the Charger Houston game because it was so bad. It actually got good at the end, but the meat of it was just it was an unwatchable product. And then this morning as the Buffalo bill started curb stomping the Denver Broncos kind of took a little snooze between that game and the Eagles game, and that just never happens to me. And part of it was like the football was kind of boring and this weekend was kind of a dud until that game on Sunday night. And obviously you would say it was probably one of the least you know, just in terms of headliners, Washington, who hasn't been a great franchise over the last twenty years in Tampa. It was a smaller market. Obviously they're a good team, but it's not exactly the Eagles and the Packers or Buffalo and Denver. But that game was awesome. That was extremely enjoyable and for as crappy as most of the football that we've watched in the previous four games, I mean, that Pittsburgh Baltimore game is a complete embarrassment. If you're a Pittsburgh Steiler fan, and you guys all know and you guys agree like that something has to change, and that's going to be a conversation that not only shouldn't die, it should gain steam over the next couple of days. But I felt very like, I'm glad this is happening right now because I just needed a good football game. I needed something to come down to the wire where every play felt big, where every third and short felt like it mattered, where a team was going forward on fourth down and sometimes they were getting it, sometimes they weren't, and being emotionally moved moved, you know, in a tie game with a defensive holding call instead of it being a twenty point blowout, where you're like, this is just run out the clock. So congrats to those two teams for just entertaining us now on the game. When I got done with Colin, the first quarter was almost over, I think it was three to nothing, and as the game went on, then Jaden led him on a touchdown drive. The Tampa Bay did not look very good until the final drive in the first half with Baker Mayfield where he went on that run he ended up running over Bobby Wagner. He's kind of the guy that ignites that franchise. I mean, once upon a time, John Dorsey drafted him number one overall and said that he reminded him of Brett Farv. There was an intangible quality to Baker that is hard to quantify, but you know when you're around it, and early on in his career you didn't really feel it. These last couple of years in Tampa, you really do let him on a touchdown drive, Boom scores a touchdown and the game kind of gets going. And one thing you saw in the second half is Terry McLaurin and Jayden Daniels, Baker Mayfield and Mike Evans, Like that's an elite combo with those guys. It's basically an unstoppable operation when those two guys get rolling with their number one target, and it's really really enjoyable to watch. And Jayden is a true dual threat guy. Whatever Baker has done in over the course of the last I don't know, forty eight months, maybe not that forty eight months, maybe twenty four months of losing the weight of clearly just being a lot more explosive as an athlete, Like running and movement is a big part of his game, and he just is a really, really enjoyable player to watch. I really like watching those two quarterbacks play football, and Jaden the threat he had and Listen, I liked Washington going for it constantly on fourth down. You have nothing to lose. You're on the road, you're a dog. This is year one playing for field goals. Who gives a shit? Let it rip? And they went forward on an early fourth down and they got it to Zach Ertz. They went for another one on the goal line, they did not get it. Then they get the Tampa gainst the ball back. Obviously Baker has I don't know if miscommunication, the mistiming. They fumble the ball, Tampa gets it back. Then after that they went in a situation where they went for it on fourth and goal, wasn't even close to Ertz, and I guess that was the play I was talking about. Tampa fumbled. Then fourth and goal they hit Terry McLaurin for the touchdown, and it was just like, this is awesome. And on the Terry McClure touchdown after the Baker Mayfield fumble, you can see Winfield killing grass. He has just stopped as Terry's running right behind him. So instead of going back and being a football player, instead of being a robot, he's frozen because he's scared Jaden's gonna run tow the pylon. And Jayden's athleticism and the threat of a running moment at any time. Froze one of the better defensive backs, especially you know, playing forward in the NFL in Winfield and McLaurin got open with ease. And one problem you saw as this game went on is Tampa's front's good. I mean, Vidavea is one of the best players in the NFL. Vidavea is a star. Clancy looks excellent, I mean how good the ole explosive their front looks, but their back end is not great. And I know they were dealing with some injuries, but there were countless big times in the game tonight, whether it was fourth down, fourth and five, fourth and goal, where you just felt like, I don't know if Tampa can cover these guys, and countless times over the middle of the field, Jaden Daniels hit big plays and obviously the play that cemented the game was I mean Clancy had a chance to tackle him in the backfield. I think if you could do it over again, when Jayden gives him the stiff arm, he went for the body. He should have just grabbed his stiff arm and essentially hip dropped the stiff arm. Grab the stiff arm, either climb up on him like a lion does on the serengetti to its prey, or you just grab the arm and fall down and let your whatever your body weight is take the quarterback down with these but instead Jaden great play kind of stiff arms him and then uses his leg and dies for the first down, and you know, essentially ends the game right there. But I think the difference down the stretch of this game. Obviously, the Baker Mayfield fumble was a huge swing moment because at the time it was seventeen to thirteen and it just that was killer. But I do think that that play in the backfield, like part of Jayden Daniels, and you see this with Lamar Is, he can kill you throwing the ball. We know he's a good deep ball thrower, he's an excellent thrower over the middle of the field, but he freezes everybody in the second line of defense with his legs because at any moment, especially on you know, any down and distance that's not like third and fifteen, if it's like third and three, third and four, third and two, at any moment, he can take off and get laterally to the edge, and that's what he did tonight. So I really enjoyed this game. I think it's crazy, how good, how just consistently physical Washington's defenses with not really a star studed group. I mean Tampa's from a name recognition standpoint, Clancy Videvea, Levante, David Winfield, Carlton Davis was in and out of the game, but he's he's a solid player. And you just watch, you watch Washington, and you go. They got the two defensive tackles. Obviously Payne got injured. They have Bobby Wagner, who's pretty long in the tooth and nowhere near his once upon a time elite self. He's still a solid player, but he's not the Hall of Fame version of himself that he was four or five, six, seven years ago. And you just watch a team like it reminds me of a better version, because Jaden is so much better version of Daniel Jones of what the New York Giants were the year that they beat Minnesota in the first round of the playoffs, the year that what was that game that was Dave, Yeah, they beat him, Kirk Cousins and Minnesota had won thirteen games and they just went in there. Now, every human alive would take Daniel or excuse me, Jaden Daniels over Daniel Jones. But that team was just so well coached, it was so tough. It was just they were just buttoned up. And they remember they had Wink Martindale was their defensive coordinator and Dave Ball was the coach of the year. That's kind of the vibe you get here. I don't love all of Cliff's stuff. I mean some of the short yardage when he puts the quarterback in the shotgun on the one play at work tonight because Jayden that was the stiff arm play. But that stuff makes me nervous. It's not my cup of tea. Like if I had to pick one of the two offensive coordinators, I would take Liam Cohen all day, every day over Cliff Kingsbury as my offensive coordinator because of the style of offense in which he runs. And clearly you saw this year once they got Bucky Irv and they're dramatically better running the football than they have been in years past with Leftwich and what's his name in Carolina last year. But this game was fun, that was really really enjoyable. Two defensive coaches kind of going at it, and you have to wonder, you know, I don't think Liam Cohen's going to get a head coaching job. And listen, I like Todd Bowles, but I'd be hard pressed to let Liam Cohen walk out of the building. And that would be the one thing that would make me nervous. I laugh when people go Cliff Kingsbury is gonna get what hired as a head coach. The guy was a head coach like two years ago at Arizona Cardinals, like we all saw that. Now just because he makes some good play calls with Terry mclaur and Jade Daniel, are gonna hire him to be your head coach? That seems kind of crazy to me. I can't be alone on that. I'm not like what he's doing in Washington solid, but this notion and I get he's got a lot of friends in the media and by all accounts, he's a great guy. I'm not rooting against him, but we just saw it a couple of years ago. It did not work. It's why I see all these puff pieces with Brian Flores. Guys. Brian Flores is an excellent defensive coordinator. We know that no one's ever argued that Brian Flores's problem was he was a raging asshole with the offense. He couldn't get along with offensive coaches or the quarterback. That's kind of important in twenty twenty five. It doesn't really work without that. Like we saw Cliff Kingsbury in Arizona. He was like a better looking version of Mike McDaniel. No accountability. Players walked all over this notion that like two years later we're like, how about this guy? How about that guy? Guys, we literally just saw all this. You think anything's gonna change, Like what are we talking about? But that's the way it goes sometimes in the NFL. The powerful thing in the NFL, when you want to get that momentum going, you get someone to write a piece about you. I read the thing about Floraes and Grigson. You know, you see the momentum about Cliff Kingsbury. It's like, can you imagine being like, what's his name? Why can't I remember his name? Steve Spagnola, who I understands older but can barely get a sniff. I mean, it's shocking when you see that. He gets an interview and everyone's like, what about Flores? What about Kingsbury? What about this guy? It's like, hey, guys. I've been literally kicking the shit out of everybody for half a decade right now, and I've got a combined one interview in six years. And these guys were laughing out of their buildings. We're run out of town, and they're just like getting interviews left and right, and they're getting puff pieces about them all over the place, like give this guy another shot. The power of the media and this stuff. You see it with coaches, and you see it during draft time, and it's why these agents work these people to write puff pieces and talk about them and tweet about them and say what you want. It sounds stupid, but it works because these owners and these people in these hiring committees spend a lot of time on social media, and for whatever reason, they gain momentum in those situations. It's fucking laughable, and it's not shocking that the same teams went over and over while these guys recycle and get fired in three or four years. NFL playoffs, we're talking about the NFL playoffs. 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One thing I was thinking is heading in to these last couple of weekends of football, would anyone take the trio of the AFC Baltimore Buffalo, so essentially the winner of that game. I think we all acknowledge that it would be stunning if the Chiefs were to lose to Houston. So basically the Chiefs versus the winner of Buffalo Baltimore or the rest of the field to win the Super Bowl. So essentially the NFC versus those teams. And I was thinking about for the majority of the two thousands and twenty tens, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady went to thirteen Super Bowls. Peyton went to four, Tom went to nine, and they won. You know, Peyton won two, Tom one once he went to not counting Tampa, but just when they played in the same conference, they won eight Super Bowls. So it's basically those two guys winning all the time. There was Naron Rodgers and Drew Brees and a Roethlisberger in there. But for the most part, there weren't many randoms. Why because they were beating everybody. And you watched Josh Allen today, you watched Lamar Jackson last night. We've watched Patrick Mahomes flip a switch down the stretch of the season. It's not even a fair fight. It really isn't. When Joe Burrow can't make the playoffs and he's the only guy that should be included in that conversation. These guys are in a different universe than everyone else, in a different universe. Patrick Mahomes could retire tomorrow, he would walk straight into the Hall of Fame. Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson are Hall of Fame players in the peak of their powers and dominate. I can't wait for this game on Sunday Night. But is anyone beating these teams? Because I would say that Buffalo is probably the worst team of the three. But if Josh beats Baltimore and then goes on the road and beats Kansas City, they clearly are peaking at the right time and no one's betting against them. If Baltimore goes on the road to Buffalo, and then beats the Chiefs. Nobody's betting against them, and the Chiefs because they're the one seed, only got to play one of the two, where last year they had to play them both. Take care of business of Houston. Let these two teams beat the shit out of each other, host that game at Arrowhead, win that game their favorite in the super Bowl. I think right now, unless anything can happen in football, it's a one game scenario. It's not a you know, a series, right, so you could have a bad half and it can cost you a game. But how do we not have Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes hosting the Lombardis We got watched the Eagles today. I'm sorry, like Jalen's missed some games. He just looked off. And their offense for most of the year passing wise, has been very hit or miss. Their defense is good, but lost to Kobe Dean. They had to throw Burks in there. I saw Burks last year played for the forty nine ers. He's not any good. It's one thing to play a half with the guy, it's another thing to play him in a full game against the Lions, against the Ravens, he is a liability. He guess what happens against elite teams, liabilities get exposed and before he goes out, Like the Eagles didn't have that many liabilities, their defense was so stacked, and now they got a key liability on teams that have fantastic running backs and tight ends, and that's where that type player gets exposed because you get him in one on one situations and you attack him. So I just think, right now, it's gonna come down to the AFC, and really the AFC is those three teams. So it's you know, Manning and Brady carried this league for a long long time, and that's what it feels like Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and Lamar Jackson are doing currently. I wrote down just some things that just made me scratch my head, like what the hell is going on? And sometimes you have those moments like what the hell is going on today? In the Packer game, obviously they had to put in a backup left guard. And sometimes there's a reason you're a backup and not a starter. You're not as good as the guy. And because we don't see, for the most part, only the teams truly know how good your backup is or not. But even in the land of backups, some backups are way better than other backups. Like some backups are a second year player who is gonna go on to be a five year starter in the NFL. Other backups are only on the team, maybe because of injury, maybe because of some poor draft picks, and in six months during free agency in the draft, that guy's roster spot will be in jeopardy and he will not be a backup in the NFL. And you saw today the Packers got into a pinch and had to go to a backup and he got exposed immediately. And sometimes when you have to play a backup against the wrong matchup i e. The Eagles who have elite inside pass rush in Jalen Carter, you are fucked. And there is not a goddamn thing the offensive coordinator can do because he's just gonna get put in one on one situations against the defensive lineman. And he was holding him, he was holding him, he was holding him. So they yanked him out of the game and then they put the backup in and late in the game, the backup, you know, the backup to the backup gets tossed into the center, hopefully didn't break his ankle, and it was like just an all time meltdown. You have that spot and sometimes, you know, for a long time you could get around having a bad guard or a bad center on your team because most teams did not have big time interior pass rush. I would say most teams in the NFL now have at least one, especially the good team's high end interior rushers, and they will move those guys around, and hell, they'll put defensive ends now over a guard or a center if that guy is that bad. Aaron Donald used to do this all the time, Like if you would hurt, a tackle would get injured, and you would put in a backup left tackle or backup right tackle, the rams would move ninety nine and they would just flex him out of defensive end for a couple of snaps. You'd be like, let's see if you can block this guy. Happen to the Niners countless times. It's like, oh shit, here we go. And that's that they will sniff you out and they'll smoke you out, and they will just expose your problem immediately, you know, for whatever reason. And I get it. He's a pollar rising guy. I guess everyone doesn't just acknowledge Jim Harbaugh's good at his job. Some people just hate Jim Harball. I don't know if he's a quirky guy, kind of arrogant, kind of cocky. People just look down upon guys that win a lot, right, just jealousy. Most people aren't winners, so they try to demean that guy. He's obviously a weird cat, so I guess people naturally root against him. And for whatever reason, people just want to act like Justin Herbert isn't good at football. Oh, everyone's been telling me jerking off. Justin Herbert is his all time great players. Like guys, No one acts like Justin Herbert is better than Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow or Patrick Mahomes. He's just better than everybody else. Now, did he have an awful game, Yes, he was terrible, probably one of the worst games in college or the pros he's ever played in his life. But if you think if you lined up every general manager and you took the four guys that I listed off the table and started listing everybody else and said, do you want Justin Herbert or this guy? And just started going down the line from Jared Goff to Jalen Hurts to Baker Mayfield. Who do you think they would say? And I get it. It's easy to pile on when he has a god awful game and it was bad, It was really, really bad. His best wide receiver is Lad McConkie, who's really good. They traded Keenan Allen, they got rid of Mike Williams. I don't know if you notice put over the years, those guys are pretty good players. So his wide receiver room isn't good and he has to force balls to the little white guy, and he overthrew him a couple times and it was ugly and one went for a pick six. But this notion that he's some scrub and some overrated media creation, and listen, there are a lot of media creations that are fucking laughable in sports and politics, you name it. This is not one of them. This is one of those things that universally in the industry everyone acknowledges this is a high end player. Now, is he ever going to be a champion? Is he ever going to be the league MVP? I don't know. I wouldn't bet my life savings. And he's gonna be a super Bowl champion. But I'd say there's a decent chance why he has a great coach, not a good coach. A great coach, you don't happen to that great coach. He had his ass kick. You know what happened to Bill Walsh in the eighties. He didn't win the Super Bowl every year. Sometimes he lost playoff games to the Giants, to the Bears, to the Minnesota Vikings. They did not win it every year. Jim Harball lost in the first round for the first time in his NFL career. But it just made me laugh that everyone. I knew some people would make fun of him. I didn't realize like the universal hatred for this duo so overrated guys, What are we talking about? I mentioned it earlier and I will say it again. This is the worst version of the Chargers and the deadver Broncos. For Sean Payton and Jim Harbaugh. This the worst their team is going to be moving forward was this season. Both these teams are going to be better next year. I say the same thing about the Commanders. They might not win twelve games next year, might win ten. They will be more talented next year. I'll promise you that the Jets man, this is one that is just really head scratching. I was thinking about this today Dennis Allen. I saw a clip come up on my Instagram. Jay Glazers, who was really close with Sean Payton back in the day, so he I think still is but knew all the Saints guys really well. So he's tight with any dude that came from the Saints, and he's boys with Dennis Allen. And Dennis Allen was talking about how he's really tried to invest himself in his family over the last two months. Dennis Allen got fired a long time ago. Matt Eberfluss got fired a long time ago. Robert Sala was the first guy to be fired. A week or two later, Joe Douglas is gone. Those three teams fired their guys forever ago. Doug Peterson lost his job on Black Monday. As of recording this right now, Mike McCarthy not quite sure what's going on there. Feels like he's staying, but who knows. But he had his job the whole time. These other teams fired their guys forever ago. So the Jets go into this process and every single day they interview, like seven people like what is going on? And this is what happens when Tannebaum and Spielman who listen, I like, I know Mike Tannebaum. I had Rick Spielman on the podcast last year. He was an awesome interview. But whenever you hire these consultant firms, it always feels like they have their own agenda and their own objective. You start helping out some agents, you start helping out some of your buddies. I'll never forget when Washington State was looking for a coach. I think it was I think it would have been like twenty eleven or twenty twelve. They interviewed the athletic director who had come I think from like Domino's, Like he had had a business background before he got into college athletics. And they asked him about like what search firm or committee he was going to use to help him whittle down his candidates, and he said, I'm hiring the search firm of what you're looking at, it's me. I'm the committee. I will conduct the search. And if you're Woody Johnson and you have a team president, once you fire everybody, shouldn't your job as a team president or any of his right hand men have been to accumulate a list of the specific six to seven guys that you want to talk to. So they're going on this wild goose chase of interviewing people like Mike Loxley and how I like this guy too, Jim Naggy from the Senior Bowl. No one of these guys are gonna get hired yet, what is the point of interviewing them all? And I'm not anti interviewing people to gain some information, but this is also serious. Like you saw the Patriots for the first time in a while, it felt like, you know what, the Patriots got their shit back together just of we know exactly what we want. We're firing this guy to hire Mike Vrabel. We're not gonna just maybe we'll like Ben Johnson know, we're going after Mike Vrabel, will bang off Byron Lefwich and Pep Hamilton check off the Rooney rule, and we're gonna hire this guy immediately. We're not fucking around. We're not gonna interview six other people to hopefully get some tidbits about some other shit. No, Mike Frables our got how could the Jets fired these people so long ago, even if you don't know who your specific guy is gonna be, they not have a pretty good idea of like three or four guys. These are the guys we're gonna dial into and want to get to know Aaron Glenn. Hopefully we can get Ben Jonson and a couple other offensive coordinators, maybe a defensive coordinator former a coach like Rex Ryan or whatever, and have a specific idea. Instead, it just feels like they're kind of pissing in the wind and hopefully don't get soaked. And we talk about all the time, like the haves and the have nots in the NFL. The Bears are getting crushed. They're interviewing a million people. You fired Eberflus on Thanksgiving. It is January twelfth. How what on when Black Monday started? You kept your general manager? Not have a specific idea. We're gonna give Thomas Brown a chance to interview, and we're gonna go after these three or four guys. These are the guys. These are the guys we've done all this research on. What else have you been spending your time on? I don't get it, Like this is when Harbaugh, brothers Andy Reid, Sean McDermott this is not a fair fight. This league is one sided. We say it's all about the quarterbacks. Obviously you gotta have a good quarterback, but it's all about the organizational philosophy from the owner to the front office. They're the haves and the have nots. It's like society, you get the rich people and the poor people. Difference in the NFL. Everyone's rich, but because you're part of the club, it doesn't actually mean you know what you're doing. And you see these franchises that just feel like they're lost at see that they have no freaking chance, and it's it's kind of sad, Like I feel for Jets fans, there's a lot of them. I feel for Bears fans, there's a lot of them. It just doesn't feel like anyone knows what's going on. And I would say the Raiders feel like that a little bit too. I know Tom Brady's much more involved now, but it's I don't know. It just feels like everyone's lost, like no one has any clear idea of what they want, Like you should have a pretty specific idea, especially in this business, of like, these are the five guys, the five guys I'm gonna put a fence around these five guys, and I'm gonna do all my due diligence, all my work, interview the shit out of all of them, will fly to each one we meet in person. I'm pro zoom and listen, I do a lot of zoom stuff. I do zoom calls with clients, people we do business with. I'm not anti zoom, but if I was gonna give guy a four or five year contract at ten to fifteen million dollars a year to be the head coach of my football team, I don't think if I could meet with him in person, I would do it over zoom. That's just bad business. If you have to do it over zoom, because they have a job and the rules totally understand it. There's nothing you can do. But if you have the ability to either fly him to you or fly to that guy, and you are interested in potentially making him your head coach, you deserve to lose if you do it over zoom, I think you're a fucking moron. And last, but not least, a couple of years ago, this guy named Tony Fenol, who's actually an Arizona resident for a long time, on the PGA tour he was one of the best players. Famously, he was in Tiger Woods's group in twenty nineteen when Tiger won the Masters, and he hid in the water on hold twelve. But it was like he was making all this money. He was a great player, but he could never win. And then he finally won. He actually won back to back weeks a couple of years ago, and it was a really big deal. And he gave a quote that I'll never forget, and he said, a winner is just a loser who never gave up. And that always stuck with me because I think most people like what really separates people in society. Obviously there are more talented people than others, but I think a consistent theme that anyone is taught at a young age, he's like, just keep showing up, keep swinging, do not quit. And a lot of people when they're faced with adversity, and it's inevitable in life that you're going to go through personal and professional adversity, whether you lose someone close in your life, your parents, close family member, broken up with, dump, divorced, fired, bankruptcy, you name it, it is unavoidable. Some people just dust themselves off, maybe not the next day, it's human nature to let it rattle you for a little bit. I've been fired a couple times. I didn't wake up swing in the next day. Sometimes it took a week, maybe two. But you have you either start moving forward or you wallow and pity and you get lapped. You either choose like I'm gonna figure this out and I'm going to start making progress moving forward, whatever that may look like, or I'm just gonna go into a tank and let life control me. And I think when you look at the National Championship, let's start early in the season Notre Dame and lost to NIU, which is about as embarrassing of a home loss as they've ever had in the history of the program. The crazy thing was that at the time, it's like, well, n IU, they might just be an excellent team. I look the other day. They finished seventh in the MAC. They did not have a good season. They lost a ton of games. They did not parlay the note name season or win into some great season. It did not go well. It would have been pretty easy to be like this, this is not gonna be good. Instead, they clearly came together and they started kicking everyone's ass, and then they got to the playoffs, and they used that adversity that they had early in the season, and they got into a tight game with Georgia and they overcame it. They got into a tight game with Penn State and they overcame it. I think that is directly correlated to losing that NIU game Ohio State. The Orgame loss is not a crazy loss at Eugene. A lot of people lose their not that big a deal, especially in the fashion in which they lost. That's the type loss you hold your head high, you don't even drop in the rankings. The Michigan loss was their version of the NIU loss. It was unexplainable. They were basically a three touchdown favorite at home. They were better in literally every area except they're not as tough, and for whatever reason, they tried to prove they were tough and run it right up the middle, and it failed and they lost. And I don't think it was hyperbolic when everyone reacted to like fire Ryan Day, and I get Ryan Day's got a lot of buddies, Herbstreet, Joel Clatt, and they all defended him. That loss is not defendable, and if they wanted to fire him after that loss, it would have been defensible to fire him. It was that bad. And you could tell on Ryan Day's face like it was the most embarrassing moment of his life. He was shell shocked. It looked like he just witnessed a murder when they were getting in the fight at midfield. But whatever they did since that moment galvanized their team and they came together. And obviously the first two games they beat the crap out of Tennessee in Oregon, but then that game against Texas like they felt a little adversity, and like Notre Dame against Penn State, they prevailed and they came out on top. And I think both are great examples of it would have been easy to go into the tank. It would have been easy to like let the season get away from you. After the Michigan loss and after the NIU lost, no one would have thought it would have been that nuts if Ohio State would have lost, maybe not the Tennessee game looking back, but that Oregon game or even against Texas. But they just refuse to lose. And I think sometimes when you go through a really, really tough time, if you are able to bottle that up and use it to your benefit. Sky's the limit, because let's be real, when you're having success at whatever you're doing, you don't learn that much. You really don't. You learn through failure, you learn through adversity. And I think both these programs are directly correlated, like their success with the two games that you could argue are two of the worst losses of the season and might be the two worst losses of twenty twenty four. Think about that. The National Championship between Ohio State and Notre Dame includes the two worst losses of the season NIU at Notre Dame and Michigan at Ohio State. I mean, I think combined it was like forty five point favorites. I don't know the exact spread off top of my head for NIU. I know I think Ohio State finished like eighteen and a half nineteen points. At one point in time it was over twenty and now they're playing in the Natty. How cool is that? See you guys tomorrow Monday Night Football. I think I like the rams, the volume