Dan reacts to the Rams' dominant win over the Vikings. Is Sam Darnold the answer going forward for the Vikings? Cowboys insider Tim Cowlishaw discusses the Jerry Jones’ decision to part ways with Mike McCarthy and whether or not Deion Sanders could be a potential replacement. Hall of Fame QB Kurt Warner gives his two cents on Sam Darnold's future and if he thinks the Rams can beat the Eagles. Plus, Mark Sanchez reminisces on eating a hot dog on the sidelines and discusses whether or not he's a better analyst than Tom Brady.
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The Rams roll the Vikings twenty seven to nine. We normally skew negative after a game like this because the season is over for Minnesota. I do want to give the Rams their props here, because just because we don't know who some of your players are doesn't mean you don't have a really good team. And when it comes to that Rams defense, they're not household names like they were when they won a Super Bowl. They do have some offensive firepower. They have a well known head coach. But that was a great team performance last night, shutting down the Vikings twenty seven to nine. They sacked Sam Donald nine times, and you get the feeling the Rams probably looked at what the Detroit Lions did when they faced the Vikings the previous game, and that is we're going after Sam Darnald. We're going to put as much pressure on Sam Donald as possible, and it certainly worked against the Lions, and the blueprint worked last night. Sam Donald was uncomfortable the entire evening and after the game he spoke about his play. At the end of the season.
You know, I clearly just didn't play good enough the last couple of weeks, you know, left too many throws out there that I would usually make and got to take better care of the football today especially, you know, I feel like I can be a lot better in terms of just moving on. My progression is not trying to force anything. And but yeah, again, I give them a lot of credit for the way they came out, they played and the plan that they had.
The Rams tight an NFL playoff record with nine sacks in a playoff game. The Titans did that in twenty twenty one, the Chiefs nineteen ninety three, the Browns in eighty six, the Niners back in eighty four. At the nineteen sixty six Buffalo Bills, it felt like every time Sam Darnald was sacked, money was coming out of his pockets. It was like, damn, there's a there's another million dollars, there's another million dollars. Poor Sam, what's going on? They put pressure on him, and I would have thought that they would have expected this from the Rams. And the Rams are a young team, you know, aside from Matthew Stafford, they are one of the younger teams in the NFL. And they are one of those teams at the end of the year that we thought, boy, you don't want to face them come playoff time. It felt like them and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Well, Tampa got kicked to the curb. But here are the Rams, and the Rams will have the Philadelphia Eagles coming out. And in case you're wondering, the Rams are getting six against the Eagles, the Texans getting seven and a half against the Chiefs. This according to DraftKings. The Commander's getting nine and a half against the Lions, and the Ravens are a one and a half point favorite against the Buffalo Bills. All right, Seaton, pull question here, and then we'll go back to the game. We'll also talk about the Cowboys situation with Mike McCarthy, who is now free at last to talk to other teams, and we'll ask the question, don't know if we have an answer to it, will Mike McCarthy be a head coach in the NFL next season? All right, seton, you know what?
Just quickly off the last night's game too.
It was so brutal.
Every time Sam Donald made a mistake or got sacked or did something, they would immediately cut to Kevin O'Connell's face, let's get the coach's reaction to what we just saw. And then they would sort of pingpong back and forth between Sam Donald's just looking shell shocked, like what's happening and Kevin O'Connell being like, oh my god, this is awful.
Was JJ McCarthy on the sidelines because I kept thinking, if you're gonna show sideline reaction, just give me the quarterback and waiting here and trying to figure out, now, what do you do because you can't throw thirty Sam Donald had a wonderful year, maybe the comeback player of the year, but you have thirty five touchdown passes, what did you have twelve or thirteen interceptions? He played great. I would like to have seen justin Jefferson's reactions as well with everything that was going on, because if you're the best wide receiver in the league and you're probably going is this as good as we can get? Because you don't know what you have in JJ McCarthy. Now they think they know because they drafted him high but went out with the knee injury, and now what do you do with Sam Darnold, Sam Donald, apologists, Pauly PEPs.
Yes, Paul Weirdly I was thinking about this. The Vikings may have benefited by the loss yesterday because three weeks ago they had to bring Sam Donald back, whether it be franchise, tag or contract. Now they have the wiggle room to move on from him, and the fan base probably wouldn't revolt. At least this morning, they wouldn't. So they are light winners last night. Yeah, I see where you going with that. That Okay, we have to keep him too. We don't have to keep him.
And the fan base would be able to say we saw him in a couple of big games and he didn't do well. Look, it's going to come down to the quarterback, win or lose. We give them credit, we give them blame. It's more than that. Now, there are a lot of times that quarterbacks will they have to take the blame for sacks, and this is a situation where Sam Darnold has to take some of the blame. I think they he was sacked fifty seven times this year. You know, Russell Wilson would get sacked, Joe Burrow would get sacked. You know, there's certain guys who get sacked a lot. And that's you know, in large part because you know Caleb Williams. You're trying to hold on, You're trying to make something happen. But give credit to the rams that rams and if you don't have to blitz. I mean, it's such a benefit when you just send your defensive line and then you're back in coverage and you put pressure. Now, this is what the Vikings were doing prior to the last two games. Brian Flores, that defensive coordinator. He was throwing all kinds of junk defenses, crazy stuff, and it worked until it didn't. Yeah, Eton.
The if you're looking at at Sam Donald, I don't know how you and you're you're the Vikings front office, I don't know how you in the offseason sit justin Jefferson down at a meeting and say we're sticking with Sam.
I just don't know how you can.
I don't really know how you can look at any of those receivers and be like, Okay, I know those are rough two weeks, but we're gonna stick with that.
Dude.
I just don't know how you can.
But these aren't pedestrian numbers that he put up.
Yeah, Pauling, it feels like last night he was exposed Sam Donald as a good not great quarterback.
Maybe like Rock Party.
Has been somewhat exposed as good not great where under optimal conditions in November, he's fantastic in a playoff situation, there's so only so far he could take you, and Matthew Stafford feels the opposite, like you'd ignore the regular season on Matthew Stafford say in the playoffs, I trust this guy.
Yeah, But there's only so many quarterbacks who truly are game changing. You know, lamar Is and Josh Allen Is, Patrick Mahomes, they're truly different than everybody else because you can have you know, and you can put Joe Burrow in there. I think. I think Joe is legitimately great, but you still look at sort of that second tier and there's a big difference in that. I mean, Jalen Hurts is a good quarterback, I don't think he's great. Justin Herbert, I think he's a good quarterback, I don't think he's great. There's a lot of them that are lumped in there, but there's only a couple that you go, oh my god, that guy with the ball game on the line, he'll make a difference. Sam Darnold's not one of those guys. Kirk Cousins is not one of those guys. Jayden Daniels is becoming one of those guys, like he's starting to sneak into the top five of Wow. And now let's see what he does. Because it's week by week. Your report guard is week by week, and then we go, all right, I'll give you an A, give you a B minus. Sam Darnold Old, I'm gonna give you a D and then that's it. Then your final report card and then you go into the off season. If you're the Vikings, you have to be extremely confident in JJ McCarthy. If not, you might have to say to Sam Donald, we're gonna franchise you and pay you whatever forty four million dollars as an insurance policy. Yes, Fritzy, it's so easy to.
Get caught up. I did two, fourteen and three.
Wow.
This guy is something. Look at the Vikings.
But the weight of that Lion's loss and yesterday's loss, that's like three losses each from fourteen and three losing those two games. But I don't know what to take away from this with Sam Darnald, Like at the end of the season, if you say, how did Sam Darnald. Do you know the totality of the season, I'd say, good, good, Now is good worth fifty million dollars? Not to me? But then it's not my money. But then how many years has he earned or does he say, look, I can benefit from the market because there's no other free agent quarterbacks who were good or on my level that I'm going to be able. Not everybody gets a quarterback and he might have to wait until the dust settles at the draft, and then that's when a team reaches out and says all right, And then if you get two teams in a bidding war, then maybe Sam Donald is making whatever three years, one twenty something like that, And I thought that might be the direction the Vikings were going to go in. Is put him in that Baker Mayfield kind of financial slot.
Yeah, Pauline, it reminds me a bunch of years ago, maybe ten years ago. Remember Carson Palmer was on Arizona his last stop, and he had that great twenty fifteen season where I think they were thirteen wins and he was an MVP candidate comeback Player of the Year, and then he had a playoff game I think where he threw five interceptions and it undid the entire season and he never got it back.
The perception here is Kevin O'Connell, the Vikings head coach, on Sam Donald's season.
You know, I think it's very important we all think about, you know, Sam's body of work, what he was able to do this year when not very many people thought he would be able to lead a team to fourteen wins. I'm very rare for a quarterback in their first year. In fact, it is rare the most wins by a first year quarterback with a team, And just the way he came in committed himself to just that daily process to be the best version of himself.
It did not work out in the end.
I'm proud of him, proud of you know, really everybody in that locker room.
But Sam and the journey him and I went on this year.
Will always you know, be a you know something that's a special place in my heart for sure.
Well, you got to back your guy, man, Kevin's doing the right thing. Sam Darnold completed sixty eight percent of his passes and had a passer rating of one oh six point four, thirty five touchdowns twelve interceptions through week seventeen. Then he completed fifty three percent of his passes QB rating of sixty six point four, had one touchdown one interception in his last two games. So a dramatic fall off, And you wonder did these teams figure out something in this situation? Now. I always like it when somebody says, well, we got the blueprint. Well, there are certain teams that have the people to carry out a blueprint. I can have the blueprint to solve a Rubik's cube. That doesn't mean I'm going to solve it. I'll be like, damn, how did these kids do this?
Yes, possible solution for next year for the Vikings. Play Sam Donald in the regular season, play JJ McCarthy in the postseason. He was great in the postseason for Michigan. Problem solve h Okay.
Did we come up with the pole question?
Seaton?
I think I asked you. I don't know if we got a couple of.
Them, Well, yeah, we got a few of them who had a worst day yesterday, Sam Donald or Mike McCarthy. Uh, you could argue the case that only one of them had a bad day.
All Right, you know what I'm going to discuss the Cowboys situation coming up, and maybe Mike McCarthy had a good day yesterday.
Maybe what else do you have? How about is the Cowboys head coaching job desirable? According to Troy Aikman, No said that last night, but I still think it is. Well, we'll talk about him, all right. Got another one for me?
Uh sure?
How about how much money has Sam Darnold lost in the last two weeks?
A ton a bunch.
Somebody's still getting paid big time.
What if you had that metal detector guy goes out on the field after the game. You know, those guys are on the beach walking around like, damn, these aren't coins. These are one hundred dollars bills that I'm picking up here. I felt bad for him because you don't root against somebody, and he was a good story. It just felt like he was shell shocked when he was going back to pass after the fourth or fifth sack. You almost go back going where's it coming from? And the last thing you want to do as a quarterback is beef thinking about getting sacked. Now, you need to know where pressures coming from. There's a difference of where's it coming from or which guy is gonna make me hurt? And that was the feeling I had with the Rams last night. But give them credit. That's tying an NFL playoff record with nine sacks, putting the pressure therefore taking the pressure off the rams offense.
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Media, that's Covino and Rich. Jim kalishan Dallas Morning News sports columnist, He's got it easy. He's always got something to write about. And here you go, right on a platter. All I think you wrote two columns like you're on fire with what's going on here. So let me start with is the Dione possibility a true possibility in your opinion?
In my opinion, Dad, thanks for having me. I think no.
But given that it's Jerry Jones, I'm certainly not going to rule it out. There's something about the allure of doing something like that that would appeal to him. However, I just think he's going to try to find somebody, somebody else.
You know, when you look at Dion after two years, what is his record of Colorado? About five hundred, barely over it?
And I just I don't think that's going to be I don't think this team needs a motivator, and I think Dion's stuff works better in.
College than it will in the NFL. I think this team needs a coach, and it needs different schemes, and it needs new ideas.
And I'm not saying Dion couldn't bring that, but I think Dion's greatest strength works better at college players.
And you bring this up in your column. You're saying you got to fix Dak Prescott. Tim That's going to be difficult for a guy who's injury prone, making that kind of money and is a pocket quarterback and is thirty two years of age. I don't know who can fix that.
You find those aspects troubling, the fact that he.
Plays it two thirds of the games. Yeah, and that's why you know I've thrown out Cliff kings Bred. Look, Ben Johnson is everybody's first choice, and nobody has any.
Idea what he would be like as a head coach. But everybody loves Detroit's offense. But you go through Detroit's offense.
Player by player, and you know Dallas doesn't win anywhere except maybe maybe Ceedee Lamb is a notch higher.
Than a Mode raw, but it's not much if it is at all. And yeah, but if you're the Cowboys, if you're Jerry Jones, you have to hope.
All you can do after signing back to that contract is hope you get three or four mostly healthy years out of him, and who who can put together the best offense that he can thrive in.
I think that has to be the target here.
What happened here in the last two weeks with Mike McCarthy.
I don't know that anything did I mean that the fact that they'd met every day last week. You know, I do feel for Mike McCarthy sitting through those meetings. The sun never sets on a Jerry Jones conversation. They just go on and on, and you know, in Jerry's world, they didn't even get to contracts till the last day, So I don't know what in the world they.
They talked about.
I think Jerry's mind was probably made up. If they didn't do better in the playoffs this year, no matter, no matter how that happened, he needed.
To go in another direction. It's five years.
It's one playoff win, one playoff win over an eight to nineteen, So.
You know, I don't think anything went wrong McCarthy.
Actually, I got coached the hell out of him after Dak left and the way they played down the stretch, and they could have won the Cincinnati game, and they could have won obviously, could have won the Washington game.
But while Dak was here, there were three and five and they were a mess. And you know, I just.
Think after five years he had to go look for another another voice, try something else.
Okay, but why didn't Jerry make the decision when you had the window of opportunities to Ben Johnson.
Because he doesn't operate that way. He likes to drag his speed and take a week, give us headlines for talk shows and things like that. I don't really think I just mentioned Ben Johnson. I don't think he will hire Ben Johnson. I don't think the quiet, soft spoken, brainy offensive coordinator. They had one of those in Kelli Borr, and I don't think that's Jerry's idea of the head coach. So I'll be if Ben Johnson becomes a serious candidate, I would be very surprised.
Any chance that Mike McCarthy had a good day yesterday.
Yeah, I would think so.
I mean, look, he's been here five years, so he's made thirty five or forty million.
He hasn't done badly here. It might be, and he turned it down whatever it was, a one year offer supposedly for about the same money.
He's confident he'll get the Bear's job or another job, or sit out a year and try again. And he's not a bad coach. I just don't think. I don't think he enhanced whatever his reputation was before coming here. I don't think he enhanced it in these five years.
Well, he kind of got neutered there, and I don't know if he was ever viewed as a coach that was submissive.
It's always difficult here.
Parcels is the only hire since Jimmy that Jerry has sort of taken a couple of steps back and let him be the head coach. You know, it's appalling to me that, you know.
Jerry Jones does Jerry Jones does his post.
Game press conference at home games the same time Mike McCarthy's talking.
Of course, and there's there's like me and four.
Other people and Mike McCarthy's roof and everybody else is around there. Just think of what that does, not just to the head coach, but to the signal it sends to all the players walking out.
They know who the authority figure.
Here is okay, Tim, If I said to Jerry Jones, you can't talk to the media, you don't do any more interviews for the next five years, but I'll guarantee you you win one more Super Bowl.
Oh oh.
He's talked about how much money he says he would spend, although he doesn't really spend it.
That would be a difficult one.
No radio shows, nothing.
This man does two radio shows a week.
Then, Oh, I know, and he'd do more probably if he could.
I mean, he'd like to do drive time.
He would like to host.
Three to six Going Home with Jerry, But that would be a yeah at this point. At this point, it is uh, tad, you're here on this planet. I don't think he's I don't think he's going to that. That's too tough. Maybe here.
Oh, he couldn't do it. No, he could not do it. He loves it, he's addicted to it, and he wants everybody to know that he knows what he's doing. Just trust me. I got a plan.
It's in good hands.
Great to talk to you, as always, and probably check in with you again soon because you're going to eventually get a head coach here.
They we'll have a head coach. We'll see who that is.
Thank you to all right, that's Tim cawdi Show.
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Kurt Warner Hall of Famer, you can catch him on NFL Networks Game Day morning. He was on the call for Westwood One Radio Line Night with the wild Card game between the Vikings and the Rams. Kurt, good to see again. What did you expect pregame was going to happen last night?
Yeah? I wish I knew. I didn't really know what to expect.
You know, anytime you throw you know, everything that was thrown at the Rams into this week, including you know, issues.
With your family and maybe friends of yours.
I don't think you ever really know how team is going to respond, how they are going to grow together. But I think Sean McVay did an unbelievable job. Give some credit to the Cardinals. I thought they did an unbelievable job of welcoming the Rams. And making them feel at home. But what a performance. I mean, they came out from the get go and they dominated that game. And I think oftentimes when you have situations like this, Dan, it goes one of two ways, right, and you find out pretty early whether a team is ready to play or whether their mind is on something else.
And we saw very early that the Rams were ready to play.
Okay, let's look at Sam Darnold because we know his future could be at stake in Minnesota these last two games. What did you see from Sam Darnold that you didn't see in the other games this season.
Well, first of all, we'll put it on the team as a whole.
I thought Minnesota got physically dominated in both games. So that's the first issue is And it wasn't just upfront. Sometimes it was on the back end with the receivers as well. But maybe the biggest thing for me was Sam, and I kind of saw it all year long, was his struggles with pressure, you know, understanding when pressure is coming and having answers for that pressure. And sometimes that answer isn't even just a completion, but it's just save in some yards.
You know.
There was that situation in the fourth quarter last night where they're what third and eight or something like that, and he takes the huge sack. I mean, in that situation, you got at least set up for a field goal. So if nothing else, throw the football away, maybe you go forward on fourth down because you're in that situation. But there's too many times this year of him just holding and taking negative plays, and those negative plays are just hard to overcome. So that, to me was probably the biggest issue that I saw. And then you have to ask yourself with the question, as I know everybody is, is okay if you want to keep him around? What does that look like? What kind of commitment do you have to make to him? And you know, in those big games, the two biggest games of the year, he didn't play very well. Are you willing to you know, commit to him long term?
You know? After seeing that?
All right, I'll ask you play GM, would you keep Sam Darnold if the price is right?
I would say yes, I would keep the prices right. I think the question would be how long do I have to keep him? And then the other factor, dan is I don't really know what we have in JJ McCarthy, Like I didn't see him in preseason I didn't.
Know where he was. I don't know if you know the Vikings.
Were ready to start him after that one preseason game, or if you know they hadn't seen enough and Sam was the guy. So I feel like after watching him this year, they've got a good enough team that they need a guy at that position to make them competitive.
Sam made them.
More than competitive all year long. But that, to me is the question. I don't really know what you have in JJ McCarthy. I didn't see enough in college. I didn't see enough with the Vikings to know for sure. If you feel like you have enough, then absolutely not, you go with JJ and you move forward. But if you're not sure, I think it's hard to let a guy that did that well out of the building and you say, Okay, so we saw one flaw or we saw a flaw with our team.
We need to fix that flaw.
But if we do, we've got this quarterback that played at a really, really high level.
Okay, but is this fixable. You're talking about pressure, Well, every quarterback faces pressure. The difference is you welcomed pressure. He seemed to be unnerved or very nerved by it, like oh my god. And then you start to kind of get out of your comfort zone. So can you fix what you saw the last two games?
Dan? I wish I knew the answer to that, but I'm with you.
I think there are some people that in that moment, when pressure's on them, high stakes, they can just slow the game down and make the right decision. I made a comment about Jayden Daniels from the night before, and what I love about Jaden Daniels is he makes the right decision in the moment, even if he doesn't see it, even if something's not open, He'll throw the football away, you know, he'll take off and make a two or three yard gain instead of taking these sacks. And here's a rookie that we're seeing do this. And so I've always wondered if that's something that truly can be taught. You know, when you've got pressure around you, or when the game speeds up, can you slow it down and have that answer? I think, you know, I think for the most part, if you're good at it, you're good at it.
Do I think you can help a quarterback.
Sure, you can help them by giving them some answers, But I don't know if that's something that all of a.
Sudden, we're going to see a quarterback that's not.
Good against pressure become great against pressure. I'm not sure that's something that that you can really learn.
How threatening are the Rams.
I think they're they're scary, and I think they're scary in a game where they can win the line of scrimmage and not to me.
But you're going against the Eagles now exactly, and so that to me is where I feel like the Rams could struggle a little bit as upfront.
You know, if they can handle it up front. They obviously have playmakers. They've got a young front. I mean, nine sacks last night by eight different guys. They've got lots of guys that can.
Get after the quarterback. I just don't think Philly is going to play that sort of game.
So I think they are a dangerous team based on what Matthew Staffer can do, the weapons that they have, but it has to be more their way of playing football, and I'm not sure.
They're going to be able to dictate that against Philly.
He's the Hall of Famer Kurt Warner. You can see him on NFL Game Day Mornings with Rich Eisending Company. He was on the call last night the Vikings and the Rams. If I said, you can have Jade and Daniels moving forward or justin Herbert.
Oh, I'm taking Jade Daniels. I mean, no, no doubt about it. I mean, I just I've seen that young man play.
It's quarterback Kurt.
Maybe just outside of that.
But I'm probably only saying that because because he's a rookie, right.
And because you know, against one year and one body of work.
But if I stacked up all the things that he does well and put him up against the top five quarterbacks in the league, it would be hard for me to find five guys that do all the things as well as Jayden Daniels has done this year, the critical moments, handed on pressure, just the consistency of his technique, the red zone. You know, normally you have struggles in the red zone because everything gets tighter. He has been phenomenal in the red zone, last two minutes of games and critical moments like it would be hard to probably find five guys that have played consistently better than him all year long.
I think you were twenty eight when you were a rookie.
Weren't you my first year playing? Yes, I was twenty Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, twenty eight the Bills in the Ravens and both of these quarterbacks trying not to do too much, Like you almost have to say to yourself, Okay, I still got to be that same person that I've been all season longer my career. But sometimes you want to play outside of yourself. And sometimes we've seen where you know you're you're your own worst enemy. So how do you have that seat belt on that says just stay within yourself here?
I think the biggest thing, Dan is you don't predetermine that you're gonna do something that maybe the situation doesn't dictate. You know, like if you drop back and you're telling yourself, hey, I'm gonna take off here if I see any kind of a window as opposed to reading the play and then taking off when the play dictates that, that, to me is the key is you have to play the play. But the easy thing to do is, oh, I need to make a big play right here, So I'm gonna go back and I'm going to throw this deep one. You know, if I get any scenario like you can't talk yourself into doing things that the situation doesn't dictate.
For you to do, and I'm sure you know. You know me, I wasn't a runner.
I couldn't move, So my dictating was, you know, saying I'm gonna kind of a deeper throw or make a bigger play than was out there. For these guys, it's taken off and creating, you know, instead of you know, winning with their arm.
It's like, hey, I can go back.
And you see these guys do this at times where they hit their back foot and they're already taken off to run.
Because they felt something.
And in those situations, I almost feel like it's you're dictating that ahead of time. I know this is a pass, but if I drop back and I see something, I'm just gonna take off and run instead of allowing the situation to play out for you. And I think that's what you have to fight. The more talented you are, the more things you can do, the more you have to fight that and say, play within myself, play within what the play dictates, and don't try to do too much.
Not always an easy thing to do, but that to me is the key is play.
Play to play and don't allow those thoughts to get in your head, you know, ahead of time to dictate how you're going to play.
How desirable is the Cowboys, John.
I mean, I think it's always desirable from the standpoint that you know, if you win as a Dallas Cowboy, if you have success as the Dallas Cowboy, you're going to get notoriety and you're going to have you know, that platform that I think you know, every player and every coach covets.
Right when you get to this level.
You want to know that when you play, you're going to be on TV and what you do is going to be.
Going to be focused on around the league. But you know, I think everybody's talked about it.
There's the negative side to that as well, because we have this perception that the Cowboys are supposed to win championships, even though it hasn't been. It's been thirty years since they've won championships. So, like Mike McCarthy, you win a lot in the regular season, not good enough, not good enough, not good enough, And then we always talk about the second factor is you've got an owner that wants to be out in the forefront and the owner saying things that you know, as a coach, you're like, I don't want anybody saying that, you know, I want to keep this stuff in house. I want to be able to lead here. And you've got to fight your ownership a little bit in what they're saying and deal with that. So you know, those two factors I think can can make it a tough job. But I don't think anybody you know that wants to be a head coach is going to turn down the opportunity to be a head coach of the Dallas Cowboys because you know what that means. If you believe in yourself and you have success, what that can mean.
For your career.
Good to talk to you is always thank you.
I'm going to talk to you too. Thank you, buddy, Thank you buddy.
That's Kurt Warner.
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
We make lay for our friend. He's Mark Sanchez Fox Sports joining us on the program. How good are the Rams cool?
I think they're an excellent young team that is peaking at the right time. And stude I already forgot Sorry, Good morning, DNTs And where are you six six?
I'm in Hawaii. Actually, my wife's we got two.
We got twins on the way, so we're doing a little trip before she can't travel anymore. And then, uh, we'll be in dad mode and wife mode and baby mode for for most of the offseason. So this is our chance to get away. But I'm not gonna miss you guys. Sixty three coach. I'm getting a little heavy by the end of the season. I've been eating a little too much. I don't read on the sidelines. I eat hot dogs on the sidelines, and I'm probably like two right now, so I need.
To trim up. Oh wow, Okay, but Rady shout you out though, Mark with the Yeah, I remember seeing it.
Eating text during the game. I text her during the game and he texted me back like a quarter later, just with one.
Of those funny emojis. Yeah, you know, messing around with each other.
But it's uh, it's been cool to watch, you know, And when you see other players doing what you're doing and watch them grow throughout the season, it's, uh, it's pretty fun.
Okay, go back to eating the hot dog. Yeah, so you you blew out the Raiders. Yeah, and you're eating a hot dog on the sideline. Did you catch any heat from anybody.
Oh my god.
Yeah, So we we win three straight. This is my rookie year. We win three straight. Then we lose like four straight. We go to California. I'm back home. It's in Oakland. We're playing the Raiders at the Old Coliseum, and my whole family's coming to the game. My mom actually got a beer dumped on her by a Raiders fan that game because we were beating him so bad. And my brothers almost went to jail because they had to like throw this guy off over her. It was crazy. It was crazy, like classic Raiders game. So then I wouldn't I couldn't eat. Like the night before and the day of, I was just like so in my head and so upset and couldn't figure out what was going on, why we're losing, you know, trying to get better whatever, and I just didn't eat. So those guys on the sidelines that have white shirts and blue shorts, they have like one little NFL logo. They're like kind of like ball boys. They do like water stuff whatever, And so I just looked at one of them and I go, hey, did you got any food?
Because I got pulled out the game.
I said, do you have any food and he's like, you mean like a power bar or like a something like that. I was like, I don't know anything. Can you run up to concessions. I'll take a hot dog, I'll take a burger, like whatever you got. He goes, yeah, dude, i'll get I'll grab you a dog. And so he ran up, goes and gets a hot dog. Is he's running away, I'm like, yo, grabs the mustard, gets the mustard. And then you see the whole deal where you know Dan Dierdorf and it was Gumble I think Gumble Rip was calling the game, but they they had the camera on me.
And they caught me.
But back to your question about the Rams, because I've had them a couple of times this year. I'm so impressed with Chris Shula and this defensive coordinator. You know, you lose your defensive coordinator Raheem Morris to Atlanta and he takes over the job.
And people think like, oh, yeah, first year.
Well he's been there for eight years with Sean McVay knows exactly what this offense is, what this team looks like, how it's supposed to fit together, and the way they've drafted and developed. You got it, you know, tip your caps a less need and this defensive staff because it's incredible. I mean Byron Young at one point he was working at like a dollar General and then ended up getting his chance to play at Tennessee wherever he went, and he wears the number zero, he said, because that's how many people believed in me. And this dude's making great plays out there. Whether you get Kobe Turner from wake Forest who was originally at Richmond, then goes to wake Forest for his senior year, the dude's a captain for the La Rams defense his second year in the league. Like, that's pretty impressive stuff. And then you put in these two rookies that Reek Taboc last year on the Florida State defense that basically had him undefeated, and it's you know, fisk and verse, and so they were able to generate pressure without bringing five or six players a lot. They did it occasionally, you saw the Kobe Durant pressure. But when you can do it with four, that's a defensive coordinator's dream. You could just sit back, play coverage, generate your pressure with four and force that quarterback to get rid of the ball. You got plenty of guys in coverage, and I mean, you got to give them all there do. They really really played well in that game. And to Stafford's point, you were talking about all those yards, It wasn't gonna be that kind of day. It wasn't gonna be a throw for three to fifty type day. Five touchdowns, you know, yeah, thirty five of forty, it's not that day. And for him to understand the formula toll win that football game the way we're gonna get after him on defense. That's what they talk about when you say complimentary football. That's what they're talking about. When teams understand that, know how to play that game. And sometimes it's time to just cut eight, move on with your life. You don't have to take the shot downfield. And obviously Matthew Stafford knows that.
Okay, but let me look at the Viking situation. You just got manhandled by the lines the previous game. You know, the Rams are gonna look at that blueprint and say, all right, let's just see can we bring four and put pressure on him and make him uncomfortable. We had Kurt Warner on last tower and Kurt said, hey, I wasn't mobile, but I knew when to get rid of the ball. Sacks are not all created equal here, so what should the Vikings have done to mitigate the damage or certainly the pressure on Sam.
Okay, this is an extreme example, but remember in the game when Stafford.
Dumps the ball out, Yeah, and people, oh, it's intentional grounding.
Intentional grounding. Do you understand.
His level of understoning all of his where all of his pieces are at all times, and being able to get hit close your eyes, still have that picture in your head of exactly where all the chess pieces are, and to just flip that ball out knowing you're going to get the ball where you're supposed to get the ball.
I'm not getting sack. I am not.
I refuse to take negative plays. So sometimes when you'd see you know, even Peyton Manning Tom Brady immediately catch the ball, boom, it's not right and either fall down instead of going back another five yards, or literally just rifle the ball at somebody's ankle.
You're like, what the hell was that? Well, they know it's not worth it. You got me.
I know when to hold them, I know when to fold them. Kenny Rodgers right like the gambler. I know how to play this game and those kind of things are where Stafford is operating at an elite level, and Sam is still learning some of those things.
And it's tough because some of those are on him.
Some of those he could have got the ball out earlier. And in big games like that, we say this all the time, you know, I think Pete Carroll was incredible about reminding us of these big moments, and all the commercials and all the hype surrounding this game makes this game feel bigger. Same size field, same size ball, same rules except for overtime. So what are we doing? We go back to our fundamentals. We know when to get rid of the ball, we know when to hold them, when to fold them. Let's go play some ball and Sam, you know, unfortunately he's just got to got to continue to learn.
But the hell of a year.
I just feel bad because the last two games, that recency bias is going to crush him when it comes to you know, contract negotiations this offseason, that that knocked them down a couple of rungs.
But you know, clearly he can play. Now you get to that next level.
If you're Minnesota, do you like what what do you think? Sam, Donald's future is where is it?
Well, I think now it might be better for Minnesota financially, you know, because you start negotiating at a different number than you might have if he won the last two games, right, or he would have won. To love sat out this year, Yeah, sure that you totally can if you love McCarthy and then you got to bring in another veteran, or you keep Daniel Jones who's on the roster and have him be your veteran and then potentially be like Sam Donald next year. Like there's they have plenty of options. The big the big questions are all the free agents they got on defense. I think Joe Buck might have said it last night, but I think Mattellis is the only one in that back end in their secondary and linebacker group that's even on contract.
For the next year.
So they got like six free agents there there were a critical part of their success. So I think it's not just a quarterback. There's Kevin O'Connell shown he can play well with a lot of different quarterbacks already, whether it's you know the past or not, whether it's Kirk Cousins, whether it's Sam Darnold.
You know, they can do. He can do it.
So now it's okay, how do we win that first playoff game? They got to get out of the wildcard round or get the first round by and win a divisional They just got to win a playoff game, and then you know, what are we doing on defense?
Who's going to play for us at quarterback? I think those are great questions.
But now I think if anything, if anybody has the leverage, it might be Minnesota a little more than.
Sam Mark Sanchez father and waiting joining us on from a Fox Sports. You know you're competitive guy, Tom Brady is Tom Brady, But do you feel you're a better analyst than whoa whoa whoa whoa?
Careful now careful listen? And I hope Tom would pay.
But you got you feel like I feel like if you're if you're playing quarterback, or if you're going to compete at anything, you got to feel like you're the best, or you shouldn't be doing it in my opinion, But that's just the way I was reard.
That's just kind of the way you know, we grew up.
When you step into the booth, you step in between the white lines, you step on the court, you're the baddest dude out there. And if you don't think like that, it's not gonna go well and it's not even worth your time. So of course I think, you know, I can do this better than anybody. But I'm sure Troy Aigman thinks that. I'm sure Tom Brady thinks that, and they're all really really good. And at the end of the day too, when it comes to, you know, this announcing game, it's a little different than you know, as as a quarterback. You have a record next to your name, you have a completion percentage, you know, you throw for yards, touchdowns, you get all these stats. Wasn't an announcer. You get a bunch of opinions about either you're good or not. Well, what makes you good? I don't know. You might like chocolate ice cream. I might like vanilla ice cream. We both think they're good, so you know what I mean. So it's pretty subjective when you get to the announcing stuff. The thing that I do appreciate though, and this is kind of a fox thing that I've really you know, leaned into and looked up and kind of researched.
But like when McMillan and.
Madden and you know, all these old school broadcasters were together on the Fox team, they would collaborate because what happens is you have crossover tape.
So think about it.
You have a sixteen to eighteen game season, and you Paul the New Orleans Saints week two, and then you have the New Orleans Saints at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers week eighteen. Well, if you haven't seen New Orleans for sixteen weeks, that is a completely different ball club. And those narratives going into week two have changed in week eighteen. So it was interesting before the last game of the season together actually in the same place by happenstance. But I see Tom and he's working out. I'm working out, and he's like, Hey, I got the Saints. You just called their game this past weekend in New Orleans. What's the work. Talk to me about him a little bit. You had him versus the commander's boom. Now he's got the commander. So we're just talking and sharing ideas and stuff, and hey, man, here's what I saw, Here's where I think they got to get better. Here's what they're having problems with, Here's what they.
Do really well.
And this, this to me is their formula to win, you know, so when you watch the tape, i'd keep an eye on stuff like that, and he does the same thing in you know, back.
And forth and building. Good. But but who can bench more? Between you and Tom Brady?
Good bench more?
Yeah?
Oh, man, I don't know.
No, he's he's he's all about it last y.
Yeah, he's not a big like bench Yeah, he's not a big yeah. Pliability, all the bands and stuff. Yeah, I'll tell you what he was.
Getting it in that workout, though.
Bro.
I walked into the gym and I was like, I need a stretch. I just got off a flight, I had just arrived. I walked in with a pizza and sandals, and my man's over there like full Billy blanks, like ty Bo going hundred miles an hour.
I was like whoa. And then I finally realized it with him. I was like, who is this guy?
Like?
What are we doing?
Oh?
Sorry?
Got it?
What's up? Dude?
Does Tom have a bunch of guys around him? They remind him how Grady looks like.
No, no, no, he's you know, he's got a he's got a he's got a good group of people.
And you know the trainer.
You know he's got I'm over there just thinking back to my old workouts, like, yeah, I think I'm supposed to do.
That's why you weigh too forty two Mark Easy.
We're not body shaving here, We're not body shaving. This is okayd of Dad bod. This is a father figure.
Okay, Yeah, that's hot. Uh, final minute here. Cowboys job is blank. The Cowboys job is.
Blank, interesting, wild available.
I mean, those aren't compliments.
I don't know.
I don't know who's best suited to take that job.
Because if you go Dion, I think there's like he's started to catch up to that learning curve of coaching in college and clearly made progress. Right you can you can tangibly see like there's more wins than the year before. He got good players there. He knows how to motivate those kind of things. He's gonna need some really good coordinators if he's gonna stay that same mode. Unless he just goes hardcore coordinate the offense or coordinate the defense, he's gonna be more of a delegator when it comes to responsibilities coordinating wise. So I love that it'll give them a ton of attention it'll give them, you know, it'll that star will be shining awfully bright, which I know Jerry likes.
But if we're talking.
About somebody who's maybe a little more plug and play and obviously less media fodder and less you know, stuff like that, less energy that way, I mean, how about a guy who grew up in the building, who's done so well for you, who's over in Philly in your division, light in the world on fire and killing more. I mean, I'm just I just don't know if they do it, because it almost admits that they made a mistake by letting him go and keeping McCarthy at that point, right, So either way, this defense, I mean, you're gonna blow up this defense no matter what you're paying, Dack, you're paying CD might want to figure out how to dispurge some of that money a little bit. Got to revamp the whole line a little bit, but that defense was gonna get blown up no matter what.
I mean.
They were.
They were hard to watch at times. They give up a lot of big plays.
Before I let you go. The Bill's Ravens game comes down to.
Turnovers.
If Josh Allen takes care of the ball the way he does, and the way he's running it. That was their only achilles heel these last few years in the playoffs. It would be one bad fumble, one miss down the field trying to force the ball. If he plays turnover free football, which Joe Brady's got him doing. Their offensive coordinator, it's and you notice they're using Cook a lot more at the running back spot, not just running the ball, but catching the ball in the backfield. Josh has really stepped up his game and it's really just cutting down the mistakes and eliminating those turnovers. You look at a Stafford, you look at Josh Allen. The guys that play the best this time of the year, take care of the football.
Safe travels, good luck.
We appreciate you, buddy.
The twins coming up and you got named.
No, I'd like a poll question on that though, because they're identical twin girls. So we're gonna need, you know, some good ones. Giselle, my son wants to name him Fish and Chips. I told him that's a tough sell. Please meet my daughter Fish Like, what so I need Fritzy on that. I need I need the boys helping out of the day.
No, I don't think you don't need Fritzy on that. No, you don't, we'll come up with something. Yeah, thank you, Mark, appreciate you guys. Mark Sanchanz