Transcript 0:00 All right, all right. Welcome on in to another action-packed and live edition of the Between the Hash Marks podcast. 0:06 As always, I'm Mount Lombardo, joined by my friend, colleague, mentor, and the purveyor of the Two Deep Zone, Mike Tanier, is here on a post-Thanksgiving NFL playoff picture coming into focus extravaganza. 0:18 Mike, how are you, my friend? I'm doing great. I've started the, uh, the Christmas shopping, the holiday shopping, and I have a little conundrum. Of course, it's spouse related. Okay. Okay, so- We... 0:28 I, I might be able to help you out here, might be able to lend you an assist Oh, I don't know. Okay. Uh, so this time my wife really grooved it in. She says, "I know what... I, I, I know what I want. 0:37 I know I want you to get me..." She wants, she wants an iron, but it's a specific type of iron. 0:42 Now, now right off the bat, this feels like something from The Honeymooners where, like, uh, you're getting your wife an iron like it's 1958. But- That's a trap. This is- That-... this is a trap if I ever heard one. 0:51 Th- this al- this is almost as bad as, "Oh, no, I don't want Christmas gifts this year. Let's not do Christmas gifts." Th- this is like t- butting up to the line of that trap, but not going over. But, but you can do it. 1:01 Right, right. The domestic household good, that's a problem. So, so we start with that, and then it's like, well, it's a very specific type of iron. 1:08 You know, it's used for, like, crafting and quilting, like you're doing custom things, like you're making costumes and stuff like that. 1:13 So I go online, and there are 375 variations of this particular item, none of which say exactly the thing that she wants. 1:24 And now I, I respect it because sometimes I'll send her, I'll say, "Hey, can you run by, like, Severino's or one of our little Italian goods stores, get, get a pound of salami?" 1:34 And she'll walk in and she'll look at all the lunch meats, all the Italian specialty meats, and have a panic attack and call me and say, "I have no idea what you want. I have no i- idea what you want." 1:43 That's me right now looking at these irons. I am baffled. And you can't go to her and ask, because she's gonna say, "Hey, hey, dumbass, I gave you the list. Like, I gave you what it's called." You know what I'm saying? 1:53 Like- I-... y- y- yeah, and it ruins the surprise if there is such a thing. Right. I've already gotten the... It's a, it's a little iron. It's a little iron that you use for crafting. 2:02 Well, there's nothing officially called the little iron used for crafting. 2:05 I know I'm being a little obtuse when I'm asking that level, but everything has a combination of those words and syllables and descriptors, but something else. 2:13 And did I mention that the prices range from about $9.75 to $349.50 or whatever? 2:21 So you've got to square that circle where it's like, you bought me a cheap piece of crap like, like I'm nobody, and that was really over extravagant, and that's really... 2:29 it has more features than I want, and that r- and it wasn't the thing I want. So, so I'm already there. It's December 2nd. It's Aaron Rodgers' birthday. 42. Happy, ha- 42 today, I believe. 2:39 Happy Aaron Rodgers' birthday to those of you like Ian O'Connor who celebrate. Um, eh, but like, I'm, and I'm already in this conundrum. Uh, are, are you... Is it going all right for you? 2:49 I, I think what we're gonna need to do is we're gonna need to put a, a, a Substack note out there with, like, the two different types of irons that you're considering- Oh... and figure out, like, which is the right iron. 3:01 And may- maybe, maybe you'll elicit some feedback from, from the viewers of the show that will understand why you're randomly posting about crafting irons and see which one that you should get. 3:10 From our 94%- That's what we should do... middle-aged male viewership, I'm sure I'll get lots of ironing. 3:15 Not to be stereotypical, I'm guessing not many of you out there are like, "Oh, yeah, I, I, I've got real ideas of-" They might have got one for the wife. They might have got one for the wife or their mother. 3:23 Th- they might have- Right... might have some sort of experience here. Right, and I would say they're in the same boat I'm in then, but maybe they got one two years ago and like, "This was the one." 3:32 Um, I might send the sons on a mission to get the information and report back to me. That's the... Which again, is nothing like a 1950s sitcom. 3:40 So nothing like a Leave It to Beaver thing where Eddie Haskell's asking, uh, uh, uh, June what, what kind of iron she likes, nothing like that. I, I'm gonna need a front row seat to this. 3:50 One of these years we're gonna have to do Christmas Eve at the Tanier house or the Lombardo house. Uh- Yeah... g- get all the, the pastas out there and, a- a- and a gift like this. 3:57 I, I, I need to see the reaction when, when she opens up, uh, th- this gift on Christmas or Christmas Eve. Well, I ordered one, so cross your fingers. Cross your fingers that I got the right one. 4:07 I, I, of course- I, I, I, I'll cross, cross them all right here... like, like the good husband I am, I gave her no guidance whatsoever. So she is on her own. 4:14 So we, we talk like this, and it's like she's out there trying to guess, like, "Well, what video games hasn't he purchased for himself yet?" So, so, uh, now that I say this, I'll, I'll, I'll give her a, a chance. 4:25 Like, "Why don't you get me that sweatshirt, that one right there?" Something like that. There you go. Yeah. G- g- give her the printout and everything. And, you know, we have a fun show. It's, it's a fun- Yeah... 4:33 time of year, obviously, and I debuted the Lombardo Power 10 rankings for the first time in the column. Um- You sure did... 4:42 I spoke to, I spoke to executives about the teams that lost the Thanksgiving and Black Friday games and how they're gonna fix them. Walkthrough was as entertaining and, and informative as ever. 4:53 Uh, especially I, I see that you turn the corner on the Packers playmakers. It's no longer Drop Tavian Wix. I saw, I got that memo. Um- [laughs]... 5:01 so we're gonna get into all that and a whole lot more, but before we do a little bit of housekeeping. 5:05 If you enjoy Mike's brand of fire, uh, fire, uh, burning storytelling, the blending of dad jokes, deep analytics dives, subscribe to the Two Deep Zone on Substack. 5:14 It's mandatory reading, especially Walkthrough on Mondays, the stat packs, the tank watches, all of it. If you enjoy my reporting and my analysis, subscribe to Between the Hash Marks on Substack. 5:25 Subscribe to Between the Hash Marks podcast on Apple Podcasts. Leave us those five-star reviews and ratings. They really do help grow the show. 5:32 We read them when, when they come in on the air, and you can check us out on YouTube at MountLombardo975, and I think that that covers the housekeeping. Uh- Oh... 5:40 but one of the things that jumped out from not just the Friday game, but the weekend, there are some really miserable, just obtuse and upset and angry and deranged- Yeah... fan bases right now. 5:55 Yeah, and then I'll say, like, to, to a degree, Eagles fans, there's a little bit of derangement going on there, you know? 6:00 The two-game losing streak has been very bad, but folks are ready to grab the pitchforks and kn- and knock over cars. I think there's a little bit of that going on in Detroit right now. 6:08 There's a couple places like thatEagles fans egged, they eggged Kevin Patullo's house, and these morons videotaped it. They videotaped themselves, uh, egging Kevin Patullo's house. You, you can't do that. 6:22 Like that, that, that, that's crossing about five different lines before you get to the neighborhood, throw the eggs- Yes... and video yourself doing it. I mean, what, what are we talking about here? Yeah. They... 6:31 For- forget how, like, completely disrespectful and borderline illegal something like that is. Well- They just won- Yeah... the Super Bowl like nine months ago. Right. It... 6:40 That's a violation of a million things there, and we cannot even begin to de- decry that kind of behavior. But then there's being angry and shouting and calling, uh, the, calling us or WIP or whatever and going nuts. 6:52 That's fine, but it's a little carried away. 'Cause when I look at the Eagles' situation or 6:58 Ravens' situation, up until Sunday at halftime, Bills' situation, you compare it to, like, some of the teams that are really, really miserable, it's nothing. I think, again, let's start with the Vikings. 7:12 Yeah, I didn't think that it could get much worse than what we saw from- No... 7:14 JJ McCarthy, given what they, they in- invested in him from a draft pick standpoint, given what they let walk out of their building from a Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones to a lesser extent standpoint. 7:25 I didn't think it could get much worse, and then I saw, I saw the Max Brosmer pick six, and I said, "You know, there might be a lot of [laughs] there might be some air between here and rock bottom. 7:36 We might not even be there yet." It is shocking that there might be some rock bottom left, and Aaron Schatz ran the DVOA statistics and said, "Was that the worst game by a Vikings quarterback ever?" 7:47 And it was by far the worst game by a quarterback's Vik- uh, Vikings quarterback ever. But when he ran the top 10- So far. It was the worst one so far. So [laughs] the gift of yet. 7:56 You have to give Brosmer and McCarthy the gift of yet. Worst one yet. Here's the thing, there were two 2025 Vikings quarterback performances in the top 10, and one of them was not week 12 McCarthy. 8:10 The other one's week two McCarthy. So, like, week two McCarthy, which we've kind of forgotten about, was, like, on the top 10 list of worst, uh, Vikings quarterbacks games ever. Brosmer was on the list. 8:20 You can't tell me that one or two other McCarthy games aren't like 12th, 13th, and 15th on this list of all-time terrible performances, and it's shocking. 8:31 And the other thing I saw is, you know how it is with the, um, the quarterback rating where if you throw nothing but incompletions, I think it's 39.6? 8:38 That, dude, that, that's like the benchmark if all, every, every pass is incomplete. You spike the ball every play. Yeah. Yeah, you and I get the ball, spike the ball, run backwards so we don't get killed. We get 39.6. 8:48 They've been below 39.6 two straight weeks. Yeah, suboptimal. It, it's not what you want. That's just not what you want. And, and I, I think that we, we touched on this last week, uh, in great detail. 9:00 I, I think that the bloom is off the rose of Kevin O'Connell, quarterback whisperer, and obviously playing an undrafted rookie free agent after the quarterback bastion of the University of Minnesota, you, you can only hold so much of that against Kevin O'Connell. 9:13 Right. But the amount of faith, amount, the, the amount of bad faith that they put in JJ McCarthy- Yeah... the, the amount of hubris that it took to look what Sam Darnold did for them a year ago- Mm-hmm... 9:23 it came off the rails. 9:24 And you talk to people who have been in the Jets building when Sam Darnold was there, you talk to people around the league about Sam Darnold, the floor might be a guy who turns over the football at the most inopportune times. 9:35 That floor for them was still the first round of the playoffs. 9:38 You're barely gonna sniff 500 by season's end if you even get there after letting Darnold walk out of the building because you drafted JJ McCarthy in the first round and figured, "You know what? 9:47 Forget what we saw, what we know. We're gonna go with what we think we know and what we invested in instead." That's it, what we think we know and the hubris. 9:55 And if you are the quarterback whisperer, and you've gotten Sam Darnold, and he's gotten to 13 wins, and it's like, "Oh, with my development, I've gotten him to the point where he doesn't throw the clip- crippling interception until the divisional playoff game," don't you try to, like, push that a little further? 10:10 If you're that good, say, "If I can get him here, maybe I can get him there, or maybe Kwesi and, and Flores can get the defense here, and we won't need him to do much in those games." 10:20 And that's how the Seahawks are trying to manage right now against the Vikings. Oh, Darnold, Darnold had a bad game of- against the Vikings. No one even noticed. No one even cared 'cause it was a shutout the other end. 10:29 You do things that way instead of sort of playing this, this game of saying, "Well, look how smart we're gonna... Wait until we show you what we can do with this guy." He trips up. 10:38 Well, look at the third stringer who's been, like, standing at my side this whole time, and you throw him out there, and he's worse than Shooter Sanders. He's worse than... 10:46 What other third stringers can we name who've been out on the field right now? He's worse than they are. He's as bad as anyone we've ever seen. 10:52 Yeah, Bro- Brosmer was so bad that when I wrote that game up for the column, I, the, the Sam Darnold revenge factor didn't even weigh on my mind- Sure... right? And, and he finished- Sure... 11:02 for 14 to 26, 128 yards, just okay against Brian Flores, who turned up the heat and blitzed him pretty relentlessly. You put Darnold on the other side with, with that receiving corps, with those two- Yeah... 11:14 running backs, with that offensive line, it's a completely... You alm- you could almost flip the script on, on what the Vikings did. Right. 11:21 And, and I just look at it, and, and I watched that game in the, in the late window. It's one of them that I was really focusing on. Okay. Justin Jefferson just looks like he's ready to demand a trade. 11:31 It looks like you went from paying him half a billion dollars to he can't get out of there quickly enough because you've let the quarterback situation rot on the vine. 11:41 Just a complete waste of talent fr- on a Sunday to Sunday standpoint. It now looks like a terrible investment if you don't have the quarterback to make it matter. And Mike, I, I touched on this in the column. 11:51 It was almost as if they've tried to win while building. But if you don't get- Mm-hmm... the quarterback right, where the quarterback is ascending with that talent- Mm-hmm... and you're winning as you go, 12:02 w- what's the sense of all that talent? You're, you're, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face 'cause you're never gonna be bad enough to pick that top quarterback at the top of the draft and get- Right... 12:11 nowhere good enough for the talent to matterRight. I- i- it's like, and if we do this just right, we'll build this quarterback to the point where he's Sam Darnold. Well, we have Sam Darnold. 12:20 No, but we want to build one until he's better than Sam Darnold, which might take three years or whatever to really get to that level, unless we're, we do everything perfect. 12:27 You're right about Justin Jefferson, though, and he was, he tried to be a good soldier, really for a couple of years. For a couple of years he's been trying to be like, okay about this and all. 12:35 Right now, if this was A.J. Brown, he'd be reading the Satanic Verses on the sideline. That's where he would be. George Pickens would be in Vegas, he'd be flying to Vegas after the game. 12:44 So, yeah, you're lucky Justin Jefferson is just being like, "Ah, I might not run back, run down that interception tackle." 12:49 Now, y- so the Vikings, Vikings fans have to be miserable 'cause they've been sold a bill of sale. They were sold a bill of sale. I'm wondering, could you think of... 12:58 And again, we're not talking about Eagles fans being pissed off and egging houses. Like, really, is there a more miserable fan base right now? 13:06 Well, I, I was gonna say the Eagles, but we'll put that, them up on the shelf. Mm-hmm. Pittsburgh Steelers- Mm-hmm... 13:12 I, I think that when you look at that game, also a game I had on in the late window against Buffalo, that stadium was empty with 12 minutes to go in the fourth quarter. 13:20 I- I'm talking like there were 50 people still at Acrisure Stadium, and, and the ones that were there were pissed off. 13:25 Um, similar, we talk about the Vikings and how they can't seem to get the quarterback situation right. I, I wrote it on Monday morning that this is just the familiar ending to the story on the Confluence. 13:36 It's basically Confluence canon. We're going to take this elite defense- Mm-hmm... all this talent that we have, and we're going to try to drop in a veteran quarterback, see if it works, and- Mm-hmm... 13:48 it, it, it just hasn't. I mean, Justin Fields did not work out. Russell Wilson did not work out. Yeah. Aaron Rodgers was a fool's errand from the moment that they brought him into Pittsburgh. 13:57 They could have just played Will Howard. They could have just traded up to draft a quarterback last year. They could have just decided, "You know what? We're gonna scrap this thing. We're gonna trade T.J. 14:06 Watt last off-season. We're going to get draft capital for 2026. We're gonna take the top quarterback in 2026 and reset this thing." 14:13 Instead, they're trying to keep going 500 with Mike Tomlin and continuing to regress and regress and regress while you're wasting T.J. 14:21 Watt, while you're wasting Cam Hayward, while you're wasting Joey Porter Jr and all of these guys on defense. 14:28 It, it just feels like that fan base is finally at the point where they might not be egging houses- [laughs]... 14:33 but they might be picketing outside of Acrisure with, with, with pitchforks for, for Mike Tomlin's head on a pike. Now, we shouldn't be doing this on Aaron Rodgers's birthday, you know. 14:44 Ian Rapoport and Diana Russini are pulling the turkey out of the oven right now, getting ready to celebrate. Uh, some of our old friends might be at that table, and I'm gonna be polite and not mention that. 14:53 But, you know, it's, it's a very big, it's a very big insider holiday here in the NFL. So... And yet y- everything you say about Rodgers is correct. That defense is aging. 15:02 So when you talk about Hayward and Watt, they n- they might not quite be what they were a couple of years back. You see that with their run defense, so they're wasting the final prime years of these guy. 15:11 And let's not forget, all those veterans, they also went the J.J. McCarthy route with one year with a guy named Kenny Pickett- Yes... who they just decided if we keep saying he's a leader, he'll be a leader. 15:22 So they've tried everything. 15:24 I- I'll say this about Steelers fan misery, it's different because they go through this exact same thing every year, and I know some Steelers fans are like, "You know, I'm, I'm proud of what we do. 15:33 I'm proud of what we do. Go nine and eight, ten and seven. You know, the resilience, the surprise victories." Uh, it's like, is proud the same as fun? [laughs] Like, like, y- you're proud, but are you enjoying it? 15:46 And I, I, I don't think that, especially after a game like Sunday's, Steelers fans are enjoying it. It, it's mediocrity defined, because it's one thing- Mm-hmm... 15:54 if you can go nine and eight and ten and seven, but you have a roster that you think is good enough that you get as many lottery tickets as you can- Mm-hmm... that one year you're gonna win the lottery. 16:03 That one year you're going to be good enough to catch lightning in a bottle to win two playoff games. Yes. That you're gonna catch lightning in a bottle to make a playoff run. But instead- Right... 16:11 they're just winning enough games in a very mediocre division- Mm-hmm... to, to sneak their way in, but they're one and done, and they're not even good enough to do that this year. Right. Then they're backing in. 16:24 Like, they're ba- we're backing in with Mason Rudolph, like in one of those years. Or we're backing in and everyone knows Russ is done. 16:30 This year it might be backing in, but everyone can see Aaron Rodgers is absolutely finished, and it's turned into one of those happy birthday, Aaron Rodgers seasons that are just like all ego mania and everyone trying to prop him up and prop his ego up, et cetera. 16:44 And it c- that has to be tiresome. You know, Eagles fans are mad 'cause that's what this season looks like it's gonna be. This team isn't gonna go, be good enough. They're gonna stumble into the playoffs. 16:53 They're going to lose to a Buccaneers-like opponent, if not the Buccaneers. The Steelers, that's, that's, that's January. That's what January always looks like. A- and one more miserable fan base for you. Yes. 17:04 Because I, I, I think that they're angry, but I don't think that they're miserable enough, and that's, that's the New York Giants, right? Ooh, okay. 17:12 Because I, I look at them a- and you can feel good that you have Jaxson Dart. You know, you s- you see some moments, you see some flashes, you see the moxie. 17:21 But man, whether it was Brian Daboll or last night Mike Kafka, nobody can seem to convince this kid not to be a kamikaze. Yeah. 17:29 Nobody can seem to convince this kid that when you're running down the sideline, hey, it's okay to step out after an eight-yard gain. You don't need to get nine yards if you're gonna get decapitated. Yeah. 17:36 You know, if you can't feel the pressure coming, if you decide that you're going to fight for that yard in the first quarter and risk a concussion, some of those hits the Patriots laid on them last night, whether it was Jaxson Dart in the pocket, on the run- Uh-huh... 17:49 they were some of the most brutal, brutal hits that I've ever seen. Yeah. A- and then you have Dart throwing hospital balls to Theo Johnson. 17:55 There were two or three hits where I thought he was gonna be in an ambulance, you know- Yeah, yeah... uh, getting scraped off the field. A- a- and then you're bench- you, you can't get Abdul Carter under control. 18:04 You're benching him for an entire quarter because he's late for meetings, so where's the buy-in there? Mm. 18:09 Nothing's changed with Mike Kafka where you thought that maybe it would with exercising Brian Daboll's presence and leadership. But I think that this goes way higher. 18:18 I think that it, it, it's, it's Joe Schoen's roster building philosophy. It's the flaws in the construction beyond the top of the depth chart at two or three positions. 18:27 A- and let's be real, it's the culture that's been ca- crafted by John Mara. Yeah. The Giants are the Arizona Cardinals with some history. That, that's what they areThey're the Arizona Cardinals with a good museum. Yes. 18:38 Because they can't figure out how to develop a quarterback long term, they can't build around him, they can't hire the right coach. 18:44 There's no philosophical identity other than the fact that, "Hey, w- we, we practice at 1925 Giants Drive because we're one of the oldest franchises. We have four Lombardis in our hallway. Come take a look at those. 18:56 They look really shiny and really nice, but there aren't gonna be any new ones for a while because we can't get out of our own way." I love it. That's exactly what they are. 19:03 [laughs] By the way, it seemed like the referees just, they went Darwin r- rules. It's like, "Hey, you're gonna go head first. We're not gonna call the, put the flag out," you know? 19:11 Which was, which was inappropriate and, like, I, I was like, "What is going on with this?" But yeah, and the problem is now you've gutted the coach- coaching staff to the point, well, of course there's no leadership. 19:21 You know, Bowen's gone, too. 19:23 It's a skeleton crew, so you're gonna send Kafka out there to be like, "Oh, I'm going to change the culture while I'm game planning and play calling, and, like, minding what's going on on the defense." 19:32 It's, it's, it's a fool's errand. I guess the only reason why Giants fans aren't more angry is c- it's kind of like, well, the die is cast, what's done is done. 19:39 The coach got fired, coordinator got fired, rookie quarterback's out there. That's all the, that's all the cards you can play. That's where the team is. I, I, I worry about Jaxson Dart, like, all joking aside- Yeah... 19:50 about the Giants being the Cardinals with a museum. Like, I, I worry that, that nobody is getting through to this kid because there's been, what, four concussion evaluations, five after last night. Uh-huh. 20:01 Then a concussion that cost him two games. Yeah. And he's still taking these punishing hits and, and we can talk all we want about the future a- and what they looked like that Thursday night with Cam Skattebo. 20:12 We can talk about, you know, the fact that he's played all of 12 snaps with Malik Nabers, that there could be a future there. 20:19 But I just watch Jaxson Dart play a- and my mind races to Tua Tagovailoa, my mind races to Kevin Cobb, my mind races to these- Yeah, Cobb... 20:27 promising quarterbacks that the concussions and the head injuries just derail the potential. 20:33 A- and, you know, for the kid's sake, for Giants fans' sake, for the organization's sake, somebody needs to get through to this kid. Co- Cobb's a good pull there, 'cause he really wrecked it with concussions. 20:44 Although I don't think he was quite as reckless. 20:45 The problem is I don't think you're gonna coach those instincts out of him during the season when, you know, you're just kind of running walkthroughs and things this time of year. 20:53 You're not gonna kind of get him to change that instinctual thing. Right. Um, but that's a miserable orga- uh, uh, uh, more miserable fan base, Vikings, Steelers. 21:03 We have miserable fan bases of playoff teams here, and that's why I wanted to do this with you this week, okay? So you put out the top, the top, your, your power rankings. Yes. And they were shocking. 21:14 I found them shocking, but I ca- I, I was gonna stage an intervention, but I, but I calmed down realizing that everyone who's doing power rankings is in the same boat. Even if you do DVOA, it spits out these, really? 21:26 That's number three? Like, the, the Colts are still number three. They spit out these things where you look at it like, "Holy crap." So we're all, we're, we're all looking at this and saying, like, 21:35 "What's going w- what's going on?" The, the best teams are losing. These teams that we think of as, as Cinderellas, uh, never, uh, it never strikes midnight. So I want to do a choose your fighter with you. Okay. 21:45 And the rules are, except maybe in one or two, uh, circumstances, I'm gonna give you two teams. You can only pick one to sort of defend, to, to be your fighter. And we're gonna start with 21:56 choose a struggling NFC contender, Eagles or Lions. Yeah, this was a tough one for me, but, but you look at the reality of both teams, a- and I think- Well-... it comes down to two things, health and path. Yeah. 22:09 And you look at the Lions, they're banged up. The defense is starting to creep up on the amount of injuries they had a year ago. Now you have Amon-Ra St. Brown hurt. 22:19 You're already without Sam LaPorta, and it just feels like they're trying to knuckle drag their way back into the playoffs with the deck stacked against them. 22:28 And the Eagles on the other hand, the, the path i- is much different. The strength of schedule, um, the Lions are the seventh most difficult in the NFL. Their remaining opponents are a 575, uh, winning percentage. 22:41 Cowboys on Thursday, which I think is, th- that, that's gonna be a hugely telling game for both teams. Mm-hmm. Bears, Rams, and Steelers. Good luck there. Yeah. Um, Eagles, they have the third easiest path. Mm-hmm. 22:55 And this is where I'm trying to tell Eagles fans to calm down. They might be- Right... a one and done, but the one and done is gonna come at home because- Yeah... the remaining opponents have a 400 winning percentage. 23:04 It's the skeleton crew of the Commanders twice. Yes. The Rams and a half by against, or Chargers rather, and a half by- Yeah... against the Raiders. Yeah. 23:13 So they're gonna get, they're going to get in, they're gonna win the division. It's just a matter of are they going to get the by? I don't think they will, but if I'm looking- Mm-hmm... 23:21 at these two teams, I think the Eagles are a lock to get in. Right. I don't know if the Lions are gonna play their way back into the playoffs. That's right, a- and that does pretty much all my talking points. 23:30 I have different numbers 'cause you use DVOA, but, like, uh, Eagles have the sixth easiest path or something like that, and then the Lions have the sixth hardest. 23:38 Something similar to that, and you're right, it's a, it's, it's a matter of the health. So you talked about Amon-Ra St. Brown, you talk about, um, LaPorta. Uh, Terrion Arnold is hurt in their secondary. 23:49 You go all along their defense, you've got all these names that are out. 23:52 Eagles are not nearly as banged up, and there's just that big difference between, yeah, you are in third place right now, and you gotta face the Rams a- and everybody. 24:01 And, you know, the Eagles, it will be a little tougher because it sounds like Jayden Daniels is back very soon. Mc- uh, uh, McLaurin is back, so the Commanders won't be a pushover. Still should be a beatable team. 24:10 Let's say that's a split. Let's say that's the Raiders. That's sufficient. You're in the playoffs. You're in playoffs. The Lions can't say that. 24:17 You're probably getting a hat and T-shirt, and one of the other things I did- Yeah... 24:19 in the column is I asked, um, some executives, uh, w- what's the biggest issue facing the teams that lost on Thanksgiving and, and Black Friday? Yeah. Um, and if, if I made you the general manager, how would you fix it? 24:33 And a scout told me on the Eagles, I wanna get your thoughts on this one, um, "Their offense has no identity. What can you hang your hat on about the Eagles right now? 24:40 It used to be being physical up front, but it's not anymore. With all those injuries, they've struggled. 24:45 Also losing Mekhi Becton in free agency hurt them a lot," with emphasis, "more than people realize or talked about at the time," unquote. Thoughts?I, I, I love it. 24:55 If you look at right now, the Eagles run game is 25th in the NFL, and Saquon is averaging four yards per carry, and he's he who should not be criticized. Here in Philly, all of that's suddenly changing now. 25:06 People are like, "Well, maybe Saquon has something to do with it." If I'm trying to fix it... 25:09 I mean, I don't th- you fix that now by trying, y- run the ball now and, and, and, and get more, uh, opportunities and maybe, uh, you know, run different plays, et cetera. 25:19 You get out there in the off-season, and there's always veteran MF-er guards that you can get at medium prices that you can put in there. You can get somebody like that, then maybe you grab another one of these guards. 25:33 There's always some 310-pound moose that falls in the draft because they're guards. Get some people like that. I mean, the Eagles have other issues they'll probably be looking at. 25:40 Tight end should be something they're talking about as they move forward. Goddard's a free agent. But no, that, that's it. 25:46 It's an offense that has no identity 'cause it's going three and out, not because the passing game is that terrible, because the t- the stats say it's typical. It's because they're not... 25:55 Uh, they, they've gone from 179 rushing yards a game to, like, 64. Dan, we went into the deep dive on what's been different along the offensive line schematically during the- Yeah... podcast last week. 26:06 But I think that, you know, Howie Roseman is pretty much close to above reproach in terms of how he's built this roster- Yeah... 26:12 getting to two Super Bowls in three years, winning one, winning two Super Bowls in his tenure. 26:18 But I think that, you know, they're going to look back on letting Mekhi Becton walk a- as one of the bigger miscalculations, because he played the best- Yeah... 26:25 football of his career with Jeff Stoutland, and they just haven't been able to replace him. And, and- Right... 26:30 I think that w- with everything that they do when they do it well, it's, uh, like what the scout talked about, it's what you said. It's running the ball. It's dominating along the line of scrimmage. Mm-hmm. 26:40 They're not winning up front anymore. They did not win in the trenches against the Bears on either side- Yeah... of the ball, especially not along the offensive line. 26:48 And when you get into December in bad weather, when you get into January in bad weather against playoff caliber front sevens, if your offensive line isn't firing on all cylinders, th- that's a quick way to, to have an exit plan. 27:02 That's it. That's it. And the Lions have the same problem because they have so many guys banged up. They tried to get Frank Ragnow back, uh, i- in, and he failed a, an MRI. 27:11 Maybe the Eagles should bring him in and give him an MRI [laughs] just to see if we get different results. But- Send him to a, send him to a different machine. Send, send him to the- Send him to a different machine... 27:19 center for UPenn. Don't, don't send Kelce in because he's been pounding Michelob Ultras for the last year and a half, so that's not gonna happen. All right, so we have struggling NFC contenders. Yes. Now, choose, 27:30 choose struggling AFC contenders, Chiefs or Ravens, choose your fighter. Man, this was the toughest one on the list for me, because- Mm-hmm... I look at the, the injuries, I look at the path. 27:43 I, I, I gotta still say it, it's, it's Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs- Mm-hmm... because I think that we talked about it last week. The one game that they could afford to lose was on Thanksgiving in Dallas- Yeah... 27:55 because it wasn't an AFC game. Slightly easier schedule than the Ravens have. They, they just need to find consistency. They just need to find a consistency in the running game. 28:05 They need to find a way to consistently pressure the quarterback, which they were able to do really effectively against Daniel Jones- Yep... in the second half, in the fourth quarter, in overtime. 28:14 That front seven won the game for them, dropped off a cliff a- a- after halftime- Mm-hmm... against the Cowboys last week. I, I- Yeah... still think that the Chiefs have an edge here because of who they are. 28:25 Maybe it's just mystique. Maybe I'm overvaluing them, but, but I still go Kansas City over Baltimore in that race. How about you? 28:32 Uh, according to DVOA, they have the path, because, uh, there's some easier games, makeable games. That said, it's a wild card path. 28:39 They've kinda put too many obstacles between themselves and the Broncos to win the division. They're, they're looking at things like, "Oh, we have a tiebreaker against the Colts," and some other stuff like that. 28:49 We talk about path. Um, by the way, I'm distracted for a moment 'cause the Red Cross is calling me to donate blood on this phone, so, um, let me re- reset. 28:58 [clears throat] We talk about path, it's the Ravens, it's a very winnable division, and they have a couple of games against the Steelers, who we just talked about, okay? It's a Steelers team that we think is fading fast. 29:11 Now, I'm worried about... By the way, I just tried to answer that phone. There we are. Okay. Okay, we're good. You're good, yeah. All right. We talk about a, a Steelers team we think is fading. 29:21 It's two game series against them. I know Lamar Jackson is pretty injured. He's playing through injuries. That was a game against the Bengals. 29:31 They would've been cruising at halftime if not for fumbled touchback, offensive pass interference, touchdown nullified, some of these other fluky plays. 29:40 I still think the Ravens are the Ravens, and right now they have more margin for error than the Chiefs have. 29:45 Uh, from an AFC front office executive, he basically pointed to injuries taking a toll, the pass rush not getting home, how he would fix them if he were- Mm-hmm... Baltimore's general manager. 29:54 Quote, "If they could only protect the football better, it would help a lot, because the competition on the schedule the rest of the way isn't that good. It's a favorable finish. 30:02 I think they will, and they should emphasize the running game, ball security, and perhaps trying to pressure more over the final five games." I think that's the move. 30:10 I think it's, i- i- especially if Lamar Jackson isn't 100%, you lean on Derrick Henry. You hope that he's the closer and the force multiplier that he was a year ago. 30:19 A- and you hope that that's good enough to get you through a navigable path to survive what could be an AFC North Championship game against the Bengals the second time you see them. 30:29 Um, but, but I think Derrick Henry being the focal point has to be the philosophy for them the rest of the way. I think you're right. 30:35 And maybe a Derrick Henry and Keaton Mitchell combination, where you bring a little bit of sonic in with the knuckles. Um, because I like that. 30:44 Ball security, take care of the football, play good defense, beat the Steelers, who don't do very many things particularly well anymore. 30:51 Uh, so yeah, and ball security should be manageable, 'cause again, one of the fumbles was likely, like, kinda divingA couple of them where Lamar Jackson, again, playing banged up or whatever, kind of being discombobulated with the ball. 31:02 It's not like he's getting strip sacked. He's kind of like being a little too reckless. Maybe if he's a little healthier, he avoids that. 31:09 You know, might've been a weather thing, but weather things will continue in Pittsburgh and Baltimore. That does seem like the path to victory. 31:14 One other thing about the Chiefs, we got to check the Chiefs offensive line injury report as the days move on. We've got Josh Simmons on the injury report. They had Jawan Taylor on the injury report. 31:24 We'll know more maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow afternoon. But if they go up against the Texans with both their tackles hurt, you saw that Bills game a couple of weeks ago against the Texans, right? Look out. Right. 31:34 Will Anderson and Daniel Hunter living in the backfield, just harassing Josh Allen all night long. Uh, the, the Chiefs aren't built to withstand that. Even, even with- No... 31:44 a healthy Jawan Taylor, that is a matchup nightmare for Kansas City. No, that looks like the Eagles Super Bowl. It looks like the Buccaneers Super Bowl, and it's like, "Oh, we can't protect, uh, Mahomes. 31:54 He's got to do everything using magic. That's g- not gonna be enough. We're gonna lose this game." 31:59 And if they lose to the Texans, then we really have to be like, "Oh, it's gonna be mystique and magic and other teams losing," and all this other stuff for them to get in. Let's, uh, let's do another one here. 32:10 This is gonna be controversial because I was teeing you up on this. Soft schedule, smooshy schedule. 32:18 Absur- oh, you're rolling your eyes at th- you're rolling your eyes at this as if you didn't watch the Patriots last night. You didn't watch Younghoe Koo- Oh my God [laughs]... 32:28 go up to the football for a routine f- field goal that would've made it 17 to 10, and act like he stepped on a roller skate going down a flight of steps. 32:36 Like- Dino on Threads, one of my favorite follows on Threads, a buddy of mine, he had a great line about the UK miss. He said that he was- Yeah... trying to kick the entire stadium- [laughs]... but he forgot. 32:47 [laughs] It's like, it's like that old, uh, Red Hot Chili Peppers. He was trying to kick a hole in the sky. 32:53 [laughs] I, I, I've never seen a athlete who I've seen kick 55-yard field goals routinely a few years ago look that uncoordinated. Garo Yepremian would never. 33:04 So you're rolling your eyes at the soft schedule, and you watched that idiocy last night. Anyway, you can only choose your number one and two teams. Your number one and two teams in, in, in the Lombardo power rankings. 33:18 Patriots or Bears. Choose your fighter unless you want to advocate right now for a Patriots-Bears Super Bowl. Oof. I, I can't go that far. I mean, they're one and two in the power rankings, but I, but I- Yes... 33:29 can't go that far to say that both of those teams are gonna survive their respective gauntlets and go to the Super Bowl. Mm-hmm. I, I have to go with the Bears here- Mm-hmm... for, for 2025. Yeah. Right. 33:40 Long term, I, I, I love... I mean, I, I, I think the Patriots are on the cusp of doing something really special again because they're so young. There's so much explosiveness. Drake Maye's probably gonna win the MVP. 33:51 Yeah. But there's something about that Bears team. There's something about watching that team completely embody the Ben Johnson philosophy. 33:59 There's something about 12 weeks in, I'm watching their running game, and it only took 12 weeks for them to become what the Detroit Lions were with Ben Johnson there. It's one thing to say- Oh... 34:08 "Oh, he's the coordinator. Of course they're gonna look that way." Well, it's DeAndre Swift and a seventh-round rookie Kyle Monangai, right? Mm-hmm. So the fact that it happened this quickly is telling. Mm-hmm. 34:17 The fact that they're leading the league in takeaways while not turning the football over, the fact that they're winning along both lines of scrimmage with a veteran offensive line, a quarterback who's not turning the ball over. 34:28 I, I love the Bears. I, I don't know that they're going to hold on to the number-one seed, but I think that their floor right now is winning at least one playoff game and maybe much more than that this year. 34:41 I'll say this about the Bears as a big a Bears skeptic as I've been. The, the stats bear it out. Their last two victories were their best two victories. The Eagles game, and I... 34:50 It's slipping my mind who they beat before the Eagles, but it was a, it w- it was by DVOA one of their more convincing wins, and there is reason to believe that they are legitimately getting better, starting with the fact that they got Pro Bowl cornerback Jalen Johnson out, who, who was out for weeks. 35:04 He was back against the Eagles. Kyler Gordon, who's a really good slot corner, was back against the Eagles. So they are getting guys healthier. Uh, are you looking up the who, who to- Yeah, yeah... record? It's just... 35:14 I wanna know. It w- wasn't that. It's the fact that they had three of their starting linebackers out against the Eagles. Yeah, yeah. And they still held the Eagles to just 87 rushing yards. Right. 35:24 That you can do that- But does go back to-... and scheme it up the way, the way that Dennis Allen is. I mean, we can talk about the Eagles issues in the running game all we want. Mm-hmm. 35:31 It's still Saquon Barkley with three backup linebackers out there. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. Well, that's another thing, and, and if we, if we're gonna choose the Bears, they'll get a linebacker or two back. 35:42 Yeah. Uh, Noah Sewell, I don't know how injured he is. I don't know how, uh, injured Edwards is, et cetera. They've gotten guys back in the secondary, so that's helping along the way. 35:50 They've made changes to their running system, where they're getting the rookie more, more touches. All of that's good. Uh, Ca- uh, Caleb Williams existed- exists. That's the most I'm gonna say about him at this point. 36:01 I'm going to also choose the Bears, and one reason why is because, first of all, the Patriots schedule is, is, remains the softest thing I've ever seen in history. 36:10 The wild card situation in the AFC is going to be an absolute shark tank because the Bills will be in it. 36:18 I was gonna say either the Ravens or Chiefs are probably gonna wind up in there some way, somehow, and you're gonna wind up with a team like the Texans, who have the best defense in the world. 36:27 So you have all of these, the- these teams are gonna come in there, and they're gonna go in the fox burrow, and they're gonna do this goofy stuff that they're doing. 36:34 And, "Oh, when are you going to, when are you gonna miss a field goal by a mile? When are you gonna do the dumb stuff? 36:37 When are you gonna, uh, allow a 90-yard, uh, punt return, and it won't happen, and the Patriots lose?" The Bears are gonna be in the situation where you might have vulnerable Eagles. 36:47 You might have vulnerable, uh, the, you know, the Buccaneers are always hanging around looking to, to get beaten in the first round. 36:53 These are the opportunities that a team that's running the ball and getting guys back healthy on defense can get into that, uh, uh, tournament, get a win or so, build the culture. 37:03 So I'm gonna have to pick the Bears here tooAnd for as much explosiveness as the Patriots have, and I love their big play ability with Kesha- Mm-hmm... 37:10 Boot and Stefon Diggs, and Drake May is doing some great things in the vertical passing game, there's something about the Bears' brand of football that just travels. You- You like it... punching in the mouth. Right. 37:20 Mm-hmm. Running the ball. Uh, you know, you look at, um, uh, the, the rookie tight end, Colston Loveland, starting to- Mm-hmm... ascend, you know, a- as a security blanket for Caleb Williams. Mm. 37:30 If Williams morphs into what we saw from Matthew Stafford in Carolina, then, then all bets are off and who knows what they're gonna be. 37:36 But I, I don't know that that's what's gonna happen to Caleb Williams, if he continues to just incrementally go on this pace that he's in with Ben Johnson. Mm. I, I just love what they're doing. 37:45 Um, I think that they're capable of winning at least one of these games against the Packers. And if you- Right... 37:50 do that, you're in the driver's seat for the division, and you're in the conversation for the number one seed. 37:54 So, uh, I, I like Chicago here, but I do think the future might overall be brighter because of the talent level in New England. Both teams, it's exciting to see what they're gonna do moving forward from this year. 38:06 And that's what, that's what you ask for from a first-year coach, I guess that's what you ask for from a second-year quarterback as well. Yeah. All right. We got through that one without, uh, without a fight. 38:16 Interesting. Okay. Maybe, maybe this one will, will set me off. Okay. You can only pick [laughs] you can only pick one doofusy team to make a late run for it from nowhere. 38:29 Your choices are Bengals, Cowboys, or throwing it out there, Dolphins. Yeah, the Dolphins have no chance. Okay. I gotta get something here. All right, so- Okay... you know my team. Oh, God, oh, no. 38:40 What's, what's happening? He's got a Dolphins helmet or something crazy. It's the, uh- Is it a crab? No, it, it's the, it's the Joe Burrow rookie card. It's the Joe Burrow rookie card. And, and, and- It's beautiful... 38:52 Burrow is, Burrow is back. Mm-hmm. PSA 9, by the way, so al- almost perfectly graded there. Uh, Burrow is back. He changes everything for them. 38:59 I just have this feeling that when you look at them, that they're going to mess around and win that division. Okay. Because I'm not a believer in the Ravens with their injuries. 39:08 Uh, I, I look at the Bengals, and they ha- I have to apologize to Cincinnati. I have to apologize to Joe Burrow, because- Yeah... 39:15 you know, I went on a couple of tirades the last couple weeks saying, "Why would you play Burrow? You're out of it. You're three and eight," or whatever you were. Mm-hmm. "Just shut it down. You're risking him." 39:24 Well, if you can do that- That-... in Baltimore, and you do it again, and you look at the schedule the rest of the way, and it is, I can't even find them on my, my chart here of easy schedules. Okay, go ahead. 39:39 I, I don't have, I don't have that handy, so go ahead. Yeah, so you, I, I don't have, I'm trying to find... Okay. So their toughest game is Sunday, which might well be my circling game, against the Buffalo Bills. Yeah. 39:48 Then you have a lot of dreck. You have the Cardinals, not a serious franchise. The Shador Sanders-led Cleveland Browns. The Miami Dolphins, who you want to talk about fugazi frauds, fugazi frauds to the hilt. 40:01 And you have the Ravens again. Uh, you have the fifth easiest schedule in the NFL the rest of the way- Mm-hmm... with Joe Burrow changing everything. I think they not only get in, I think they win the AFC North. 40:13 Oh, my God. Well, the, well, but to be fair, that's the only way they get in. So I got the, I got the numbers in front. These are DVOA fueled from FTN Fantasy. Um, Bengals have a 6.6% chance of making the playoffs. 40:26 6.5% of that chance is winning the division. They, they don't have a wild card option, because the best they could do is go nine and eight, and all their tiebreakers are FUBAR as it is. 40:34 So it's gotta be they gotta beat the Ravens i- in that final game. They almost have to run the table, although there's eight and, nine and eight, eight and nine, eight, whatever scenarios along the way. 40:44 They've gotta do it. So if I've got to pick one, I, that's the one I pick. Because there's that easy schedule and that divisional opportunity. 40:54 That divisional opportunity does not exist, really, for the Cowboys, unless you're going to be an absolute Eagles fatalist, and their tiebreakers against teams like the Bears and the Panthers are, are, are, are really bad. 41:06 So they've got a, you know, the, they have a 17% chance, but the avenue's not really as clear. I did the same thing, by the way. 41:12 I had to put a mea culpa out there, where it's like you sit there and say, "Why are they playing Joe Burrow? Why are they playing Joe Burrow?" 'Cause people pay tickets to go see the damn games. Yeah. You know? 41:21 It's not, it's not week 17 where it's like, "Well, it's over," and you're, you've already put the StubHub the ticket or whatever. Get out there and try to win. 41:28 Get out there and, and, you know, livelihoods, legacies are at stake. And seeing Burrow again, it's like, "Oh, oh, oh yeah, this is fun football. I like this." You know? And it was his first time back. 41:40 It was his first- Right... game back. And- And who knows if he's even 100%. You talk about the, the chances. And no Chase. And no Chase. You, you're right, and no Chase. And you get, you get- Right... 41:47 Jamar Chase back against the Bills. You get Jamar Chase back in Cincinnati next week against the Ravens. O- of the four AFC division leaders, the Ravens have the lowest odds, according to NFL Media, of making- Yeah... 41:58 the postseason at just 69%. Right. So you, you, you beat Buffalo, you, you know, beat Cin- beat the Ravens in Cincinnati, those odds could flip on a dime. 42:09 And it could get real ugly for the Ravens real quickly if they don't take care of business the next two weeks. Right. 42:13 And of course, the Steelers are also in it, because you've got six and six, six and six, and then you got four and eight. 42:19 And that's the only reason why we can talk about this team, at four and eight, 'cause they could go nine and eight. 42:22 So again, we're talking about the so you're saying there's a chance chances, but I can see it with the Bengals. Nobody can picture the Cowboys playing perfect down the stretch. 42:31 You know, starting with Lions with their back to the wall on Thursday night, it's like e- everything's gonna be, uh, chaos, and these are the Cowboys, and at some point they're gonna be too full of themselves and, and, and hilarity's going to ensue. 42:42 The Bengals, you can at least see them making that run. Yep. And, and the Cowboys didn't do themselves any favors from a tiebreaker standpoint either. So they're- Right... 42:49 gonna have their backs against the wall in a lot of ways. Um, they're, they're still the wild card champs, but earlier this year, I mean, you, you can't cough up a game in conference against the Arizona Cardinals, right? 42:58 You- Oh, God, yeah... go, you can't go down to Carolina and be the launchpad of the Panthers season and Rico Dowdle's career. 43:05 [laughs] Um, you, you tripped up, you know, against the Bears i- in Chicago, and you weren't even competitive, and you were already, um, you only have a split with the Eagles. Right. 43:14 So you look at the remaining schedule, the, the, the Lions are the toughest game left, but you still have conference games against the Vikings, against the Commanders- Mm... and against the Giants. Right. 43:23 So the margin for error just isn't there based on the losses in the games that they happen to lose. Right. 43:28 And the Jayden Daniels' return is gonna impact both the Eagles and the Cowboys down the stretch, where the Commanders could be that spoiler. Okay. So again, those are slim odds. 43:37 Now-Be- in, in honor, since we mentioned the Panthers here, and that means we, we're talking tangentially about the Rams, who remain look, still look pretty awesome. Team most likely to do something stupid 43:50 when it matters most, your choices are the Bills or the Rams. Sometimes you just are what you are, right? Right. I mean, a Penn State season ticket holder here. [laughs] You know, you lose. Yeah. 44:02 Some- sometimes you just can't beat Ohio State. Sometimes you just- Mm-hmm... can't beat Michigan, you just can't beat Oregon, and, and then it snowballs from there, right? Sometimes you kind of- Right... 44:11 are what you are. Yeah. The Buffalo Bills in January, there, there's just gonna be a moment where, like, it becomes who you are, it becomes etched- Right... in the DNA. 44:20 Whereas I still think even though the Rams did something extremely stupid in Carolina in the rain- Right, right... I can kind of like, I can write that off as, okay, traveling cross-country- Yep... 44:34 miserable weather, big win the previous week, uh, you know, hungry Panthers team needs the game to keep pace in their own division. I can write that off. Yeah. 44:44 There've been so many postseason collapses in Buffalo, man, that it just feels like if it's not gonna be now, then when? 44:51 Right, and, and, uh, Eagles fans who are, uh, frustrated who are listening, go watch how the Bills have been playing. And again, so you get, uh... 44:59 D- don't look at, like, the fourth quarter last week after you knock the other quarterback out. 'Cause the Eagles do that, they knock the other quarterback out and then they, and they get the win. 45:06 Look at it overall and you're like, "My God, these are Eagles 2.0," except that in Philly there was a parade. For the Rams, all the reasons you said. You go cross-country, it's bad weather, you're, you're on the road. 45:16 You throw a pick six. You give up two fourth down, like, 50-yard touchdowns. So it's like, "We've got them beat. No, it's a touchdown." Of course you're gonna lose under those situations. Yeah. 45:26 Um, the, the post-game win, win expectancy, the analytics said the Rams outplayed the Panthers in that game. But you give up, like, 21 points on randomness, and that's gonna happen. 45:35 So I would say the Bills are the most likely team to lose because when they do something dumb, it'll be something dumb. They'll knock themselves out of the playoffs by mistake. 45:43 They'll get swept on some weird play by the Patriots and just put themselves in a horrible playoff position. Or they'll be out there, it, it'll be neck and neck like, "Oh, we finally got it. 45:52 We're, we're facing the Ravens and in Baltimore," or something like that, and they'll miss three field goals. The Rams might lose in the playoffs, but they'll, they'll, they'll just lose. 46:00 It'll be neck and neck down the stretch, and it's like, "Oh, you, you lost by a field goal because the other team made a play." 46:06 It won't be this, like, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, let's make a movie about it disaster, which is usually what the Bills do. For sure. 46:14 And I just look at, at the Rams, I think they're built to last because of that defense. And I think that- Mm-hmm... you know, Stafford, you, you can have a game like that and still recover. Everybody has bad games. 46:25 Yeah, and he's been doing it for- But the, but the Bills, it just seems like there's a built-in ceiling to what they are. 46:31 A- and they're, they're fortunate they were playing the Steelers on Sunday, because they rushed for something like 30 yards in the first half, I think it was. Or it was something like- Yep... completely ridiculous. 46:40 And, uh, just couldn't get going on offense, and they flipped a switch in the second half and they were off to the races. I don't know that that switch is gonna work i- in a postseason game, you know, in Foxborough. 46:50 I don't know that it's gonna work i- in a playoff game, um, a- against the Ravens if the Ravens get in. It just, it just, it just seems like- I-... 46:59 something is broken with that franchise, that sometimes the identity seeps into when we get in these big spots, w- we're not gonna get it done. 47:07 They duct tape Joe Brady's mouth shut in the second half, and they got a pick six, uh, or a strip six, however, whatever that one spec- officially was. And then they got an interception. 47:17 And whether it was McDermott or just the, J- Josh Allen went out there like, "Let's, let's just hand off. Let's just hand off," and then that's all they need to do. And James Cook. 47:25 Let's let Kirk Cook do it, I'll do it myself sometimes, and let's not run that same short passing concept 45 times a game that Brady likes so much that everyone else has figured out. 47:36 All right, I guess we're in agreement there, but let's go to the flip side. And again, we're going cross confer- conference. Choose your favorite defensive grunge puppies. Okay? 47:48 So these are teams where the defense is playing well. And we could have thrown another one in, but they're in another category. And when the offense is on, you get a headache. 47:55 Choose your grunge puppy, Packers or Broncos. It's a tough week to say this, but, uh, I'm, I'm gonna go with the Broncos. Um- Oh, wow... 48:04 a- a- and, and only because I trust their offensive skill players more than I do- Really?... the Packers receiving corps. Really? 48:13 Uh, Chris Gordon, Sutton, Pat Brian, and Evan Ingram more than I do tight end X, Dontayvion Wicks, and Christian Watson. Even though Watson, you know, won that game- This is playing well... for them late on the- Yeah... 48:25 fourth, uh, fourth down conversion. But the, the, the fact that even under the worst circumstances, the Broncos still made the big play on defense on the two-point conversion to lock it down. Uh-huh. 48:37 It just feels like that defense is on a mission to punish people. 48:40 Uh, you talk about their brand of defense traveling, I think it does everywhere except for against Washington in a fluky game against a, a backup quarterback. Um, I, I, I just... 48:51 I don't know, s- something about that Denver team, I'm bought in on them, and I think that the talent on defense, uh, wi- with, with, I think, more upside talent on offense, uh, gives them the nod here in this category. 49:02 I'm surprised you could name three offensive skill position players for the Broncos, let alone say you trusted them. Did I hear you say you trust Evan Ingram? More than... 49:11 Well, who, who's the tight end of the week in, uh, in- Uh... in Green Bay? Is it Luke Etmancik still- They're, okay... or they throw him, uh, throw him off the plane? 49:18 They threw him off the plane, but what if I told you injury reports, Jayden Reed is close to being back and Matthew Golden is close to being back. Changes things a little bit, but Matthew Golden- But-... 49:29 has a little bit of Xavier Worthy rookie season in him, that, like, he's really, really fast. He's gonna get- Yeah... out there, and J- Jordan Love's gonna overthrow him by half a yard, right? 49:37 Yeah, you're- You're still trying to get on that same page. You're telling me next year Matthew Golden is gonna be out there after a year of chemistry? That changes things. But last year- Right... 49:45 I thought Xavier Worthy was gonna be the difference maker, and him and Mahomes were always just, like, half a hair off from a timing and chemistry standpoint. Right. 49:53 I get that same vibe with Love and Golden, uh, this yearI get that vibe with Bo Nix and everybody. 50:00 I ha- I have numbers with Nix and Franklin, I don't have them up on deep passes, but it's something like four of 25, and those are guys who played college together. Yeah. Um, I mean, I don't wanna diss the Broncos. 50:11 Obviously, defense is really good, and they're kinda happy with that weird identity they've got on offense, you know? That's, that's the way Sean Peyton likes it these days, I guess. 50:18 And we haven't seen them do anything stupid, and we've seen the Packers do a couple of things really stupid over the course of the, the season. 50:26 They did something pretty damn stupid on Sunday night playing down to the Commanders, so I mean, let's be real about this, and they still should've won. But, but part of, yeah. 50:33 Yeah, but that, I mean, part of that wa- uh, I guess. It w- it was stupid, but it was... Okay. But they didn't come up with the loss. We've seen the- Right... the Packers stupefy themselves into losses- Yeah... 50:41 against the Browns. Yeah, right. No- no- nobody loves playing down to their competition more than the Packers do. I'm, I'm gonna- It's crazy. Right. 50:49 That's true, they do play down, they play down to, the Bills do w- by the way, too, they play down to the competition. I'm gonna take the Packers. I, I, again, I ta- I look at the AFC, like, wild card shark tank. 51:00 Uh, you're gonna go out there and you're gonna try and, like, win by three points on, like, check downs for a gain of a yard. 51:08 A- a- and it's, and it's just not going to work, whereas I think the Packers have room to grow. I think on their injury report they are getting guys back. 51:14 I know Wyatt's hurt, that's a big loss on their defensive- Yeah... line there. Uh, but if I have to pick one of these grunge puppies, I'm g- I'm going with the Packers. A- and I wouldn't begrudge that. 51:22 I mean, I, I think they, based on what we saw against the Lions- Mm-hmm... throw, throw Micah Parsons in the MVP conversation, because you look at the sack that he had deep in the red zone, uh, stopping a drive there. 51:35 Mm-hmm. You look at the sack that he had, I believe it was either third or fourth down, uh, later w- w- on a last, uh, you know, Hail Mary comeback attempt by the Lions. Big plays and timely moments. 51:45 The defense is stepping up. Mm-hmm. I, I, I won't begrudge you taking the Packers, I just think that the ceiling is a little bit higher for, for the, the Broncos the way they're playing overall right now. 51:55 I think the best thing the Broncos can do is tr- look, looks like they're gonna get a home playoff game. If they find themselves getting home field advantage that goes through Mile High, 52:04 now you're talking about winning with defense and grunge, but the same could be said of Lambeau. And that's a big deal, by the way, 'cause you, 'cause you want Stafford out there in bad weather. Yes. 52:15 You want Stafford out there in ba- in bad weather a- and you can get that if you can get them, force them to come to Lambeau. And of course it's a different thing. I coulda put the Seahawks on this list, too. 52:24 I might take the Seahawks over both of them despite Do- Darnold fears, 'cause they do all these things to s- to scaffold, scaffold things around Darnold so well that I can kinda believe in it. 52:35 And they have Jackson Smith-Njigba, who's like- Yeah... the, the erasure of adversity for Sam Darnold. You know, you might have- Yeah... one less turnover because Jackson Smith-Njigba's gonna make a circus catch. 52:45 E- even- Right... if you have, if, if, if you have the awful pick six, look at that defense. They're, they're gonna sack a dude three times and intercept him three times and force two- Yep... 52:53 fumbles because they're just always around the football, and DeMarcus Lawrence is playing like a man on a mission right now. So yeah, I'm, I'm kinda with you. 53:00 I think that if we were including the Seahawks in the, the grunge puppies, uh, let- Mm-hmm... let's go to the city of grunge and take Seattle. [laughs] Yes, exactly. Why wouldn't we put Seattle in the grunge puppies? 53:09 I don't know. It was 7:00 in the morning when I wrote this. Forgive me, everyone. Okay, last one. We must choose one NFC or AFC South team to actually give a shit about. Houston Texans. Houston Texans. Yeah. Yep. 53:23 They are going to win that division. A- and they just completely decimated the Colts. 53:28 They made the Colts look like we thought the Colts were going to look when Daniel Jones was named the starting quarterback, albeit he's hurt with the fractured fibula. We don't know how severely. 53:36 Played through it, gutty effort by him. Not good enough against that defense. Swarms to the football, creates takeaways. C.J. Stroud was a little bit better than okay in his first- Yeah... 53:46 game back, but he's gonna get better the further he gets away from the injury. That defense is the best defense in football right now for good reason. Um, and if they win that division, ooh. 53:58 [laughs] Look out for Houston, baby, because I think that they could, they could shock some people. So I give, I, I, I really think, uh, the Texans could be for real. 54:08 And the thing about, and I'm, I'm gonna go with the Texans as well, Stroud played very badly in the first quarter and then started to come around, where it looked like he just needed to get out there for a little bit and throw some passes and make a few mistakes. 54:20 From a playmaker standpoint, the rookie Higgins has come up. He's started to really make an impact, so you don't see as much Christian Kirk. They're putting Kirk in the slot. Nico is back- I forgot about Demobile. 54:30 He was a lot of fun to watch in Mobile Yeah, he's turned into this, like, like, tough, "Oh, you need eight yards? I'll get you eight yards on third and seven." He's kinda turning into that guy, which is what they need. 54:39 Nico can then be a playmaker, Kirk can run around the slot and do goofy stuff. Offensive line's still a mess, whatever. They can do that. You're right, they, they win a division. 54:48 Every team that goes in there, we saw what they did to the Bills. We'll see, we'll know more, uh, you know, on Sunday. Um, we'll see what they can do where they can drag these opponents down to their level. 54:58 And if they can... A, a team with a great, we covered the Giants when they were great. A team with a great pass rush, the pass rush is an equalizer. Right, for sure. 55:07 A- and they drag you down into the mud, and they strangle- Yeah... you while you're down there. They're holding opponents to 16.5 points per game. You know, 16.- Yeah... 55:14 point five points per game in the modern NFL, where offense is key. It, it just seems like the injuries to, on offense and to Stroud kinda torpedoed them early. Yeah. 55:23 But th- th- they have a winning formula, and they're leaning into an identity, and you look at the path, you know, they can basically throw the, uh, drive the nail into the Chiefs' coffin on- Yes... 55:34 Sunday night if they win in Arrowhead. They can, you know, end all this silly conversation about are the Chiefs able to make a run. 55:39 Got Arizona, you got the Raiders, who quit three weeks ago, you got the Chargers- [laughs]... and you got the Colts again. That game against the Colts might be for, might be for hats and T-shirts and, and a home- Yeah... 55:51 playoff game. Absolutely. Absolutely. Is that, is Chiefs-Texans your circle it? It, it is not. No. Is it your, is it your circle it?You said it earlier. 56:02 Was it Bears-Packers or was it- I, it's, it's, it's the, the Joe Burrows- Uh- The Joe Burrows against the Bills Joe Burrow-Bills. 56:10 Yeah Because I need to know how seriously to pay attention to Cincinnati the rest of the way. 56:14 I need to know whether or not the Bills have, uh, been able to develop a closer mentality and win a de facto playoff game, which this kind of feels like certainly for Cincinnati- Mm-hmm... 56:26 maybe for Buffalo if they wanna be anything more than a wildcard team and- Right... maybe to solidify their chances of wildcard team. So yeah, I, I'm all in circling, uh, Bills-Bengals. 56:38 I mean, you can't go wrong with Burrow versus Allen. That sounds like- No... a lot of fun. So many of... So many big ones. Mm-hmm. 56:44 I'm looking across here, and I'm gonna go with Steelers-Ravens for the obvious reason that we have to get some kind of clarity here, and we're either gonna discover that the Ravens can overcome the fact that Jackson's hurt and they're struggling to take care of the ball, or we're going to see the further cl- collapse of the Steelers. 56:59 I think we're gonna see Aaron Rodgers. 57:01 I think Aaron Rodgers, happy birthday, Aaron, is signaling through all of his, uh, his insiders, uh, hi- his minions who are celebrating today, uh, you know, opening up their stockings and getting exclusive interviews with Aaron Rodgers, the, the... 57:13 I think he's signaling that he wants to play next week, that he wants to prove that he's the guy. Probably the best choice 'cause Mason Rudolph looks like garbage. Yeah. 57:22 Well, well, a little more warmed over garbage than Aaron Rodgers looks like right now. I mean, the, the hit that Joey Bosa put on him, I thought he put him right into retirement with, with- I thought so too... 57:32 the wrist injury and the, the nose being busted up. Happy birthday, Aaron, and I can see that you did this basically as an Aaron Rodgers birthday present because you, you have Bears-Packers sitting there. 57:42 You have Chief-Tex- Chiefs-Texans sitting there. Uh, Vikings-Commanders could be a little bit of fun. Oh, Cowboys-Lions is a big game too. You had a lot of options, and you decided that you're- Yes... 57:54 just gonna, you wanted to celebrate Aaron's day, celebrate 42. Aaron, we love you. We respect you. Please give us an exclusive interview. Please give us a little bit of access. We're desperate. Come on the pod. 58:08 Come on the pod. We need it. Come on the pod, Aaron. I know you have to go through a lot of people who are, uh, kneeling before you, uh, sup- uh, supplicants looking for this, but consider me. 58:18 I've written several nice things about you in the past 15 years, and many terrible things, but, but, but, but I've changed. I've changed. What's coming up on the Two Deep Zone? [laughs] There might be a parody 58:34 of wanting Aaron Rodgers', uh, uh, uh, uh, access, uh, journalism. There might be. 58:40 [laughs] We'll see how, what happens over the next two hours, but we have an Eagles Down The Stretch where we talk for real, for real, for real about some of the Eagles' problems and some of the mentality here in Philadelphia. 58:51 Nice. Love it. What do you got coming up? 58:54 Reached out to a handful of Hall of Fame voters, about a half dozen of our friends, colleagues, people who cast their ballots, um, weighing their thoughts on how they view this race, how they view the award in general because it's... 59:06 We view it as it's gonna be a QB award, but in a year like this where you have so many position players making real impacts, does it change things? So- And-... 59:15 kind of how they're viewing it, that'll be up hopefully Thursday, maybe next week. MVP voters, not Hall of Fame voters. MVP voters, correct. 59:22 So I was like, "Oh, if you call the Hall of Fame voters, I won't write that this year." You can write it, and I'll just- True, true MVP... I'll link to it. There you go. 59:30 I, I mean, I love talking to the guys and everything like that, but sometimes they're like, "Oh, God, Tanner's calling again asking about this." So MVP voters, so you're gonna get that, and that... 59:37 When's that, when's that posting? I'm, I'm hoping by Thursday. It might be pushed to next Tuesday. Still waiting to hear back from a couple people that I really wanna have in there to have it buttoned up. 59:47 Um, also, it, it's probably gonna be later this week, we're gonna kick off the what teams need to do this off-season to turn things around- Oh, we must... the three moves they must make. 59:56 We ran out into a little bit of a, a wall last year where we got to about team 20 before [laughs] draft weekend. We learned our lesson. We start early at Between the Hash Marks. That's perfect. 1:00:07 Yeah, you start with Jets or Browns or somebody now, and then just use the pre- If you're eliminated from the playoffs, if you're eliminated from the playoffs- Yeah... we can start with you. 1:00:17 And you can link to it again in January. Yeah, I mean, so you don't have to try to write them all down. Good, good strategy. I, I, I approve. Good veteran maneuver. He's Mike Tanner. 1:00:26 Make sure you subscribe to the Two Deep Zone on Substack. It is one of the best-selling Substack publications out there. 1:00:32 You get all of the firebrand storytelling that Mike Tanner has to offer, all of the analytics, deep dives, all of the in-depth analysis. Follow Mike on Bluesky at MikeTanner. 1:00:41 You can subscribe to Between the Hash Marks on Substack. You can follow me on Threads at MattLombardoNFL. 1:00:46 Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast and leave us those five-star review and ratings, and if you wanna check us out on YouTube, you can do that as well at MattLombardo975. Had about 40 people in the room today. 1:00:57 Really enjoyed hanging out with everybody. Hope you enjoyed the show. Mike, this was a ton of fun. We'll talk to you next week. Absolutely. Happy birthday again, Aaron Rodgers.
