The Brady Bunch? Bills Hire a New HC, and Recapping the Seahawks and Patriots Wins

welcome back to the media com show featuring lenny championship weekend recap edition joy as always be dominique foxworth of the dominique foxworth show we're going to talk about both games but we also got a lot of coaching news coming in hot i actually think another piece might break while we're taping this podcast dominique it's a little tease i guess it wouldn't be a tease because by the time people listen it already have happened uh but the news that did come out is that the bills went internal for their head coach before we talk about the games the rams the seahawks in the super bowl patriots the broncos i do want to hit some of these coaching news i haven't talked about the mike mccarthy hire um looks like brian dable might be the tennessee titans offensive coordinator but let's start with this joe brady news which seems to have been met by bills mafia with a womp womp do you share that sentiment i don't not that i have Hopefully they have a finger on the pulse of Bill's nation. You know, I have a hard time talking about these head coach things because there's so much up in the air. But I think this feels like it was a plan, right? Which, like, obviously I've done no real reporting. But, like, you hire an internal guy and we saw the – yeah, it doesn't take a lot of, like, yarn on a cork board. but they did some other interviews and they ousted McDermott, but it kind of felt like the concern was maybe Liam Cohen-esque is like you don't want to lose the guy that's in your building. I know the Bucs, people are pointing to the Bucs as a team that should regret letting Liam Cohen leave. So this felt like something that they wanted to do. It makes me think back to when they made the – I gave McDermott so much credit for moving on from Ken Dorsey to Joe Brady in a time when that offense was good, but it obviously was not running the ball well, and that seemed like the right move at the time. At the time, it seemed like the wrong move, but it panned out to be the right move. But now it feels kind of odd that Joe Brady is now taking his spot, even though he's kind of the one, at least from the outside, it looked like he was the one who elevated him. They promoted the guy above Sean McDermott, the GM, and the guy below him. It is hard not to look at this as a scapegoat situation. I think with regards to Joe Brady, what I'll say is this. I do think he's a good offensive play caller. I really do. My view overall of the Bills' offense, which was still on the whole pretty good top five in most metrics, was that Joe Brady was hamstrung at times by the limitations of the receivers and called a damn good run game. Great. However, the person who created those limitations got promoted. So I think that's where this is sort of an issue for me. It is the totality of the moves, right? If they had wiped the slate clean and then promoted Joe Brady, I think you could make sort of a stronger case for it as being like, okay, yes, we like what we did on offense. At times the defense has struggled and we understand we need fresh voices, but there's no fresh voices here. It's all, everything is just the same, right? I mean, we'll see what they do at defensive coordinator if they keep Babbage, but I think that's my issue with this. It's not Joe Brady in isolation. It's the moves combined that feel a bit stale. I mean, and we've talked about this a bunch, how the owners make those like major decisions like that and we heard terry pagula speak a couple days ago and um i feel like it's easy to imagine the scenario that we've all concocted in our head that brandon bean just spent more time with terry pagula like look this is what's happening like i it didn't take a lot i don't imagine that it took a lot of um a lot of intellectual effort to get to the point where if you have a one-on-one with terry pagula that convince him that the problem isn't you and you should be promoted and the real solution is uh joe brady who's in the building like that seems like a reasonable path to go and like that's that's where they ended up i guess they didn't hire one of one of um josh allen's friends which was like the prevailing uh view right that they were gonna go get the guy that was his buddy i mean i have always seen assuming from the outside that josh allen joe brady have a good relationship and right does seem like wasn't there one i forgot who it was sorry was the one being thrown around yeah and they were saying that that his major credential was he's josh's best friend i guess i mean that's neither here nor there it's just I don't know it's it feels yeah yeah it feels like that I guess I look at this and I just think this roster needs a lot of work and I do worry about whether or not McDermott covered up some of those flaws on defense and even if this offense is still a top five offense which seems likely and they're probably gonna add a receiver and whatnot do you feel good about the defense actually being better than last year that feels like a reach for me given that i think the defense outperformed some of the talent available to them um yeah i i you know you know i share your sentiment about like projecting head coach success i think it's just the reason why i suspect you know most bills fans like i i genuinely believe if they had fired both the head coach and the gm and done this this would be met with a different reaction from what we're seeing today do you think um this offense as long as it has Josh Allen, it's on autopilot and it's going to be really good. Because I asked that question because I think that some quarterbacks are like that. And I do think that being a good head coach is going to make it incredibly difficult to be a good offensive coordinator. There's that as well. Yeah, he's adding another thing to the – I think Josh Allen, similar to Lamar, you're always setting a floor. But the other thing that this offense has done, and this is where brain bean has had success is the offensive line has been really good these last few years they have two free agents on the offensive line and so like if things were to fall apart i think that's where it would start if they weren't able to replace them adequately and that's where things will get challenging for like i think joe brady's a good play caller i think the run game has been really creative but also their offensive line has been kicking ass last few years right so if that becomes an issue uh you do start to worry i think the one thing i will say about being keeping his job so he's obviously i wouldn't say obviously on the hot seat but there's going to be a lot of pressure on him right generally what i when i criticize like teams who have keep kept their gms but fired the head coaches what i don't like is when they're on different timelines right like i you know in new york it felt like it's like okay you guys know you're bad right like act like get are you making desperation moves the bills everybody knows the timeline this is never this is not a rebuild this is a win now team so even if yes the coach the gm has like pressure on him yeah everybody in the building has pressure on them so that part is fine at least um yeah we'll see i i am interested in seeing if they keep babbage and they really are running back minus mcdermott good lord um by the way i haven't heard his name being thrown out for defensive coordinator hires but that would be a pretty attractive one i would be very enthusiastic about that i mean given his success i assume that most people think that he'll i mean i guess there aren't very many jobs left and there certainly aren't very many appealing jobs left but i think most people assume that track record he's had in buffalo earns him another shot immediately but maybe he doesn't want one there's not that many jobs left right now we are looking at arizona the raiders who i convinced they're going to go offense. And the Browns, right? Yeah, which we'll see. Let's see how this unfolds. But yeah, so if I were him, I would not. Rather than Arizona, I think it's like, hey, go call the Chargers defense or something. You know, like get back in the game. Okay. Brian Dable. I guess we kind of have to pause on this because he's still interviewing for the Raiders job. But a lot of reports suggesting he could be the Titans offensive coordinator. Robert Sala is their head coach, defensive minded head coach. So you needed a play caller, an experienced play caller, I suppose. What do you think of this move for Cam Ward and the Titans? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a great move. Dayball's big claim to fame is like turning Josh Allen into the Josh Allen that we've come to know and love. Like, it's always hard to disentangle all the different factors. I tend to give a lot more credit to Stephon Diggs than I do to Brian Dayball, obviously, but you can't pretend like he hasn't been experienced with a lot of young quarterbacks. And he has head coaching experience also, which I think is just makes you kind of overqualified for the position, which I think is really great. There are things that, assuming he buys in completely, I think it's always helpful to have more people who've had that experience on your staff. a number of things that they are going to be aware of and they're going to be helping out on. But the real reason why he's being hired is to help develop Cam Ward, who has a lot of the same skills and talents that we saw from Josh Allen. He's not nearly as athletic, but like the crazy arm strength and athletic enough. Like he's a good athlete. He's not the Josh Allen level. So, yeah, I love that as a hire. Yeah, I think we can. I mean, the thing I'll say about Dable, too, beyond the Josh Allen part of his resume, is, you know, multiple spots now. He has called plays for youngish quarterbacks, youngish Daniel Jones, and he's evolved the offense to, I would say, accommodate their skills, I think, about. And with Allen, that offense, for those who have forgotten, was kind of all gas. Like, you know, remember that he was like the Big Ten personnel. They were throwing all over the yard. And then with Daniel Jones, he did a really good job of leaning into his ability as a runner, throwing on the move, gave him a lot of easy completions. That was a pretty dink and dunk-y offense, the one the year the Giants went to the playoffs with him. But he got, I think, pretty good play out of him, although now we've seen so did the Colts, right? So it's not like Dan Jones is capable. And then with Dart, again, continued evolution. I think we'll probably see a lot of the same concepts that we saw, I would guess, in New York. I think I'm in cam ward and it's gonna be a lot of RPOs um I think uh you know fewer designed runs hopefully but um yeah I think just that kind of ability to flexibility is yeah and like adapt yeah that's a that's a very good point and I don't think they got the personnel to go to play in 10 they have the arm strength but they need they need one they don't they don't We got four to spread it out with. Yeah. But yeah, I think, you know, I think coupled with it, they went experience at both head coach and offensive coordinator, which was an interesting move. Not as much experience as the Steelers, who went from a, you know, the longest tenured coach to another extremely experienced coach in Mike McCarthy. this seemed to draw a lot of I said the Bills one was womp womp this felt like the reaction was a little bit worse than womp womp okay so I'm going to try to make the case here because I think I'm very sympathetic to Cedars fans who saw this and were like are you kidding me because you know it's like you move on from Mike Tomlin the idea is we're going to get like a fresh young mind and it's going to be exciting and Mike McCarthy is not exciting and he is not young um and you know you could point to like well he worked with a young Aaron Rodgers yeah but that was like like that exists right um I am however going to withhold judgment completely until I see what they do at quarterback yeah because I think a lot of the also the womp womp with this was the feeling like oh my god are they bringing Rodgers back if they do that forget it like I'm fully out but if let's say they are committed to bringing in a young quarterback and I don't even know if Mike McCarthy's going to call plays but like let's say he brings in a young offensive mind Dominique then would you feel better about this as a Steelers fan if you're bringing in Mike McCarthy more as like a CEO type yeah I honestly didn't get on board with all the womp womping right away because like I do think that they got it feels more to me that this Tomlin decision was kind of a surprise and rather than being hasty and assuming that they can again hire a 35 year 35 year old head coach that is perfect for the right situation um out of nowhere when they've kind of been blindsided by this they took a chance to go with somebody that they knew would be stable and it's not going to be the long-term forever answer there i also don't think that it means that they're going for a must win right now it's we want to have someone who's done this before we We have nothing that we, someone who we know we don't have to worry about, who doesn't have to grow into the job. And to your point, yeah, the head coaching responsibilities he can handle, obviously, they can still get a coordinator. Like he's not one of these guys who's like my way or the highway. This is my system. I think the reason why it is particularly like frowned upon is the one that you pointed to is like it seems like it sends a signal that they are more committed to extending this Aaron Rodgers. thing but i'm not sure that it sends that signal to i mean i get why i mean yeah i get why people say it right yeah yeah i get why by the end it was like a little like yeah a little surprised by that assumption and also what about the way that the steelers have operated suggest that they're like was it sign in feeling like i feel like we saw the jets were like we'll do whatever you say feels like the steelers and i guess maybe they didn draft a quarterback last year right that was a thing But it doesn feel like if they asked Aaron Rodgers who he wanted or they thought that this would entice Aaron Rodgers. I don't know. I just don't think of the Steelers organization as being like this silly to be like, well, maybe Aaron will come back now. Like, or I'm not even sure that they want him back. So, yeah, I don't I don't get it. Yeah. OK. Like I said, if you do bring it back, then I'm freaking out. but let's just let's just let's just see right i do hope he brings in a play caller i i mean depends on the quarterback and the direction that they go in but i had a minor meltdown on get up today because because greeny kept saying all show that the steelers need to take their medicine and like just essentially saying like so the the the message was that by hiring mike mccarthy suggest that they are win now and they need to just take their medicine and like be bad and start to rebuild and so like i heard it enough times that eventually i was like that's not a strategy and it just was driving me crazy that like the presumption that all you got to do is be bad like like the patriots were for a little bit and then you'll be right back i i tried to explain to him which like he knows, but, and everyone knows, lots of teams take their medicine and they keep taking their medicine and the medicine don't work. Like I respect that. We're waiting for the Cleveland Browns news to come in. They've been taking their medicine now. Yeah, right. Like the Dolphins, the Raiders, a lot of medicine over there. They ain't figured it out yet. There are lots of teams. So like, that's not a strategy. And like, I respect what the Steelers are doing. They actually like, and what we've seen from the Patriots this year would be people pointing to like taking your medicine, but it's also pointing to like, get into playoffs. You don't have to be perfect. Get in the playoffs, mess around, find yourself in the Super Bowl. The Patriots also invested a ton of money on free agency. And we're talking about this in NFL Live. They hit on all of it. They hit on all of their sightings. It's actually, and not just the stars. Like, we'll talk about that in a second. But, and, oh, by the way, that was one of the best quarterback drafts in recent history. You can already say that already. Break my hand walking through that door next year, guys. like in the second of the second pick you know or this party it was daniels the second he was third crazy that's just not happening again like so it's this is not the year to um you now you can say next year you never know i get that but i just think yeah with with look i'm not gonna i'm not sitting here and tell you i loved it obviously i don't i'm not i don't but i also think there is like you said i think there's assumptions that are coming with the hire that yeah and like those assumptions might be separate from the higher too like this wasn't a criticism of the higher this was a criticism of the argument that i heard greenie making and i assume other people are generally like yeah i think that's the insinuation is no one wants to say tank but they're like take your medicine which means like yeah go ahead here's the thing about like not spend money don't give yeah i agree with that i don't think that they should go all in the way that they have on like big contracts and paying older guys. Definitely. If take your medicine means taking a longer view with team building, that's one thing, but this is not a tanking bad football team. They have a, they have a really good ascendant offensive line and they have really good young players on the defensive line. They need skill players and they need corners. And it also doesn't work. Like it's just being shitty. It's never really like, it's not consistently turned out that you then are great. Like it's just not how it works. All right, let's talk about the Rams-Seahawks game. We got to start with the Seahawks offense, and then we'll take a break, and then we'll talk about the Rams, the other side of the ball, and then the Patriots-Broncos game. I don't know how much to talk about. We did NFL Live. They were like, everyone talk about the Patriots offense. What's your take? And all three takes were just like, Drake May's legs. That's it. That's all I was saying. Okay, lots to say about the Seahawks offense, and it starts with Sam Darnold. It's funny. I was not going to bend about this. Because I think people do not understand how much better Darnold was in this game versus the second half of the season. So it really is remarkable. In fact, he completed seven passes over 10 yards in this game, which was the most completions over 10 yards he had since week nine, which is before things went off the rails. So, I mean, that's kind of where you got to start. And like all three touchdowns under pressure. Since in that second half of the season, Darnold was 27th in QBR under pressure. And then he, in the biggest moment against the defense that had tortured him, was that dude. So like Dominique, it is a funny one because it's like, it actually, like he really defied not only career expectations and the Rams, but he was so much better in this game than he was for most of the season. Right. That was the, so that was the fight that I was having this morning over the Darnold thing is like the celebrating him because he did do the thing that we thought he couldn't do. Like he did it. He was awesome. And it wasn't just like he didn't make the big mistake, but it was also that they trusted him in a way that they didn't just a few weeks, just three weeks ago where they didn't, they trusted him to make the big plays. they called the passes in the moments when they had a lead to put the game away and he kept answering all game long it was it was like it was a different person and it was a weird place to be in where it's like we've seen such a track record of him not um a pumpkining as people call it in those big moments that to see him do it this way and play well like that's a shock to the system But then also to not pendulum swing all the way to like, we do have to take into account the fact that it's pretty bad for a bunch of weeks. And like this team really helped and supported him. They developed a running attack. The defense was awesome all year long. And he made these big plays in this important moment. So it's just funny that he became like the bizarre version of himself. Whereas before, I'm great all the time. Don't put me in a tough moment, though. It gets like that. He was like bad. Oh, second half of the season. Then you put him in big moments and he just was lights out. The second half of the season, the Seahawks offense passing attack was 21st in EPA for play. Cause I was thinking about Clint Kubiak as well, who, and I don't, I actually wouldn't put a lot of that on him personally. We'll talk about him in a second, but like, I, you know, I, I, I, like, I have seen these takes that are like Clint Kubiak, like the Seahawks offense was amazing all year. No, it wasn't. No. I guess people didn't watch them. I think in the Rams game, they made some big plays. That was a big game. They had a lot of eyeballs on them. And then this game. But for the second half of the season, this offense was a liability. The defense carried them in so many games. And then it flipped completely in this game. I thought Kubiak, talking about Darnold and how good he was, I thought Kubiak was spectacular in this game. Oh, my God. I mean, again, Chris Shula was the one who had tortured Darnold. Kubiak tortured Chris Shula in this game because it just felt like, you know, Darnold made some difficult passes under pressure, no doubt. But I think he also played like a quarterback who has complete faith in the scheme and the scheme rewarded him. There's a lot of things that they did. I mean, I posted this on various socials, but like one of the things I noticed was like they went like super heavy trips in this game. and that was notable to me because the Seahawks offense used trips, formations, three receivers on one side at the lowest rate in the NFL because they're such a heavy team, right? And they line up guys and they put guys in the backfield. They use a lot of 21 and whatever. 32nd. In this game, they used it about 50% of the time, which would have been a top 10 rate. And you constantly saw the Rams in their zone coverage. They played almost entirely zone being outnumbered on their side. And some of it was, you know, putting guys in motion. You had JSN in the backfield running, you know, like running the Seattle route. But I just felt like the Rams, Dominique, weren't able to make in-game adjustments in response to what Seattle was doing through the air. Yeah, that was the thing that jumped out to me. One thing that is awesome about the playoffs that always feels different than the regular season is you see the, like, the idea of each team in the first half or early in the game. Then you see them adjust. Like I saw it even more pronounced from the other side of the ball from both sides. But I think you're right. There was no adjustment really made by the Rams. I think their defense has always been kind of predicated on their defensive line winning. And they're in the back back in adjusting and making plays as a result of the defensive line winning. And defensive line wasn't winning, not at a level that they needed to to support the rest of that team. and so they didn't have any adjustments, which is interesting. As Chris Shuler gets more attention for head coaching opportunities, of course, being able to adjust a defense in the course of a game isn't like an end-all, be-all, but it just didn't seem like he had an answer all game long. And I think you could defend him by also just, you could note that he just didn't have the personnel. We'll talk about Seattle's defense in some of the key moments. I want to get to that. But the Rams defense in this game played base defense meaning just four defensive backs on the field 40% of the time. The Seahawks averaged 9.7 yards per attempt throwing on those looks. And a lot of times it was JSN. All big plays to JSN were against the Rams in base defense. But even like the Bobo post-touchdown, you got the safety shades over to help JSN, so you get a one-on-one for Jake Bobo. Again, by the way, this is something Clint Klubiak's been great all year, is taking advantage of the attention paid to JSN to create opportunities for like, AJ Barner, Jake Bobo, insert white skill player. But yeah, big, big too, which is another thing. I think Seattle just had size on him. But yeah, it did feel like the Rams just didn't have enough DBs. They had to like switch in game. They put in, you know, Williams just got cooked by JSN. And then they had to put in Forbes. And then, you know, like it just didn't, It felt like they didn't have enough DBs to throw at this passing attack, which, you know, again, like in their defense, this passing attack didn't look like this for much of the season, but they've just seemed overwhelmed in past defense. Yeah, they did break out a box in one at one point. So like, I can't say that Chris Shuler didn't try a bunch of different things. Cause I, yeah, I saw at one point they had a cover too with somebody playing man on Jason. They didn't do it a bunch, but at one point he tried. So I think that's, to your point, like, just didn't have the bodies. But I do also think that one of the most impressive things about the Seahawks secondary is that their coverages can be so amorphous and adjust to the things, you know, so the zone will move with the motion. And you didn't see that as much with most teams, honestly, not just this Rams team. That's why the trips really killed them. Yes. Yeah. The Seahawks use of motion in this game, it was very purposeful. And Walker as a receiver was excellent. He's also a runner. I mean, he didn't put up like big numbers in this game, but it felt like everyone run was cool. I loved it. Yeah, I loved it. I was surprised looking at the success rate afterwards that it wasn't higher, but I was like, no. But like, those matter. Those matter. They were important times where he was breaking tackles in the red zone and creating better situations. On throws to players lined up in the backfield, Sam Darnold went eight for nine for 81 yards and a touchdown, including the aforementioned JSM1. Can we talk about the four and a half minute drive? Oh, sure. Okay. So to recap before we take a break, you talk about the other side ball. Seahawks get the ball. Four and a half minutes left. Everybody's got the timeouts. And so if you're the Rams, you're thinking, cool, we get to stop. We got time, right, to score, right? It's a one-score game. And it's more than, well, it was four points, right? Because, yeah, because Sean McFay didn't do early in the game, which would have made it a field goal game, which we can talk about that in a second. I am curious your thoughts on that. But back it up, sorry. Four and a half minutes, four minutes and 30 seconds or something like that. And Dominique, how many times in those moments have we seen defensive-minded head coaches go ultra-conservative, we're burning clock, maybe we pop off a run? This freaking dude, Mike McDonald, kukubiak yes second play under center play action pass you get walker forces missed tackle which was a problem with the rams defense and then later on i think the drives the series after that again second down darn on the move play action pass jsn that's where the game was won and i just want to give credit to Mike McDonald for having the balls on that drive to not do what we have seen so many defensive coaches do in moments like that and not get Matthew Stafford the ball back yeah so the it seemed pretty clear that this is what they had in their mind from the start maybe it was before the game even started that they were going to be aggressive when they're in that moment they ran a reverse on the first play like they did not intend to like we're gonna pound it out and put this game away they ran a reverse on the first yeah the right it wasn't just like yeah yeah so like that that that suggested me that they were like nah we're not stupid we gotta keep this ball the second play they try to give they try to overload the zone getting four on the one side and then it put them in a in a in a tough tougher situation where it's kind of a must throw down if you have any intention, but still honestly, like a lot of teams they throw a screen right there They do a draw they do something that is safe And they still attack down the field yeah like that drive yeah it was awesome drive impressive drive i think we should give credit to uh obviously darnell's gonna get a bunch of credit but on the second down that's one of those situations where nothing's there he panics and or not as a panic he like rolls right to get away from the pressure yeah yeah and i think that right oh you mean on the next the following drive but he throws it away sorry yeah i think so i think no i think it was that drive well anyway i might be you're saying the second down he converted which player are you talking about so we're talking about that four minute drive that was eight i mean uh yeah at four minutes it was eight plays i think right yeah yes he misses this bro on the set so in the first right yeah first series he hits walker who get breaks tackles amazing second series he misses the throw but then he comes back and he hits uh i think it was jason on third down it might have been cup no that was that was the cooper cup you know, I actually think it was right. And then he hits JSN on the second down. And that's one where Darnold had to, there was a little bit of pressure and like, look, the Seahawks also like David, like we trust Sam Darnold. And like we discussed for most of the season, they actually didn't. It's a lie. Second half of the season the last time, you know, but in this game they did like they backed that up. And so anyways, I just wanted to give some love for the coaching staff because And I just watching that, I was like, they're going to just run the ball. I've just seen it. I've just seen it. I've seen Pete do it. I just, and I just, like, it was overwhelming to see the coaches. That's why he's my coach of the year. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I was looking at the wrong draft. That's my fault. Either way, the draft before that, they were aggressive on that too. Like, they had the lead in both of those drives and were aggressive with the ball down the field. And, yeah, they trusted Sam Darnold. Let's take a break, come back, talk about the other side of the ball and then the Patriots game. All right. We're back. Matthew Stafford was nuclear in this game. It's crazy how good he is against the Seahawks. I think I posted it somewhere, but like two of the Seahawks' three worst games this year were Matthew Stafford week 16, Matthew Stafford in the divisional round. The other one was the Bucs game where the whole secondary was hurt. It sucks for him, dude. I mean, he was so good in this game. It's crazy. going back and watching he was even better than I remembered like it's like it was he was not throwing a wide open guys like these were there were some throws in this game where everybody was in perfect coverage and it just didn't matter because Stafford was just on one um yeah however which I mean this isn't a a knock against Matt Stafford but like I know that the Seahawks defense wasn't as dominant as we expect them to be yeah but they made plays and our boy Devin Witherspoon uh on that final drive where he made the two big pass breakups on third and fourth down where they to your point about using the receivers as a decoy on the fourth down they use Nakua as a decoy they use motion to try to create well not try to they use motion to create the leverage for, what's the Titans' name? Anyway, 18, the one where they threw the ball to the back. I want to say, yeah, to create leverage for Ferguson. And they set Puka right down in front and drew a bunch of tension. But Witherspoon is outside and undercuts it to get inside. It's just an incredible play. They wanted Williams in that moment. And I'm sure you saw Sean McVay was like a busted coverage they got lucky after. Yeah. So the Seahawks often drop their defensive linemen at the line of scrims. They show a zero look and they drop them. Leonard Williams drops often. And I think it was Derek Hall who dropped and kind of rerouted Puka a little bit. What was going on the other side, on Williams' side, Julian Love's supposed to come. Yep. Falls. And I've talked to some people about what happened here because I was so curious about the intentions. Demarcus Lawrence, in that moment, sees him. Yep. And because that freaking dude has played so much goddamn football and is a brilliant player, he drops with Williams and takes away the hot. You watch Matthew Savage's home. That's where you're going to go to. I'm watching it now. I'm rewinding it over and over again. Dr. Martin's words. What a goddamn football play. What an unbelievable signing. What a player. I didn't even realize that. I didn't notice that. I thought in the moment I was like, is he supposed to drop? Like what's going on? Watch him realize what's happening. It is unbelievably heads up play. That is incredible. Yeah, it's only a three-man rush and he pulls out. Yeah, that's amazing. what a player um i want to go to the playmaking yes matthew stafford was amazing yes um pukunakua killed him as he does yeah the difference though in this game and you could argue the difference between the two teams in some ways on third and fourth down to your point the rams went two for ten the two conversions were one successful run and matthew stafford scramble which was honestly mind blowing shocking to see tomorrow tomorrow's like what is happening um so okay dominica this is a crazy stat because i went back and watched them all yesterday 10 third and fourth downs five of those plays the seahawks made pbus five 50 of the third and fourth downs in this game and two of them were runs dvs they got their hands on the football you had woolen on puka Yeah. Yeah. You had even worry on the running back. We had a couple back to back. I guess that was a second. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right. You had the woolen PBU. That was a penalty, but it was an amazing play, unfortunately. And then he got coached and then you had the two widows been once. So you could just two things I think that I want to ask you about one. You could argue the difference in this game was the physicality of the rant, not the total difference, one of the differences was the seahawks yes the rams matthew saver cooked them on early downs but their length and physicality right was a big difference and tackling and tackling yeah yeah because you know uh woolen's gigantic uh even worries gigantic devon witherspoon is spiritually gigantic um he's like one of those like little dogs they're gigantic yeah but he always backs it up he also backs it up but also like from a coverage standpoint you could tell and we talked talked about this NFL live the thought process think about the woolen past breakup was we got to get under them yeah we got to get in front of them yeah take because we know Matthews everyone wants to throw in break into the middle of the field and then we can get hands on the football you know whatever and I just think like you saw that the difference in the rosters on those plays in those moments and I think it was also like a mature secondary too which like in the way that they approach this game because I think that's having played Stafford a number of times made you comfortable I think and knowing like he's gonna make plays because I could imagine another scenario where it's like god damn what are we doing and you know and then you start to like press and you did see Woolen get aggressive and get beat on that double move but it's also like yeah we know they're good we know they're gonna make plays we're gonna make and there was a couple of those passes that were just incredible throws that matt stafford made yeah and then there were some that were just an inch off like you notice so many of those plays are like jones has got like one finger away and like maddie stafford just tortures yeah like that one it's like all right we can bounce back from that and that's part of the reason why matt stafford had success against them because it's rare that they just break down and people are running wide open stafford is one of the few people that i think is smart enough to understand the way the coverage is going to break down and then has the accuracy to complete it. But I think although the numbers weren't great, I loved the defensive performance in this game. I always go back to the thing Kyle Hamilton said to me about Matthew Stafford that year that I interviewed him, which he was like, look, sometimes you just got to take the L when you're playing him. He's like, I was in perfect spot. Like, it just, like, and I, you know, I've talked to, like, I think that's how the Seahawks felt after this game was like, all right, like he, he just is Matthew Stafford. Um, Ultimately, special teams ended up being the Rams undoing. I felt so awful. Xavier's the Rams preseason fave, and he obviously screwed up. And credit to the Seahawks special teams as well, because I think, and Jay Harbaugh's unit, because I think when we see a muff paw, we always blame the returner, but those guys were in the position to make plays. um special teams and cornerbacks kind of the rams ultimate undoing was like what was the problem all year long wouldn't you say yeah 100 um this it's amazing how many special teams how many games seem like special teams cost them a win like that just is so rare and they fired their coach and then but i don't know i guess you combine it's not true but like that special teams play does kind of feel like in a low or a small point differential game like that'll tilt it we give them a short feel but then you have that fourth and 15 that is converted by a sideline trash talk but i don't know i just ultimately i still think the seahawks are just better like i don't think that special teams play yeah yeah i it's just part of it yeah i mean no no i think it's part of it i just didn't want it to yeah no no no yeah i mean but like you know in games as tight as this it's like, okay, yeah. And Rams were, I think they finished 26 in special teams, DVOA in the Seahawks with second. All right, let's bring it down and on. Got Broncos Patriots. All right, so it's funny because with the Broncos side of it, they asked us on live, they were like, what did the Broncos do wrong? I'm like, it was a backup quarterback in a snowstorm. And ultimately, it was kind of like what we thought, which was negative plays. Like Bo Nix, uh avoided negative plays and jared stidham had a couple really bad mistakes i think and you know like the the i think you have to give the patriots defense credit because even though the opponent the quarterback was obviously and then the broncos were missing some receivers um they they had a lot of wins against that broncos offensive line let's start there dominique because that was i think the big question i had coming into this is like okay the patriots defensive line has feasted on the Chargers and the Texans. Here comes a very good offensive line, and they looked pretty dominant in this one, even when setting aside Jarrett Stidham holding onto the football and whatnot. That was the most surprising thing from that game is I thought that that would be a decided advantage, not decided advantage, that the Patriots would not have the advantages that they had in the last two games. This defense would look different. Even with Jarrett Stidham back there, it would look different up front because they were running through a couple offensive lines, that were at the bottom of the league for injury and otherwise. So, yeah, that was surprising to me that I guess we've rarely seen this Patriots defense at full strength, but seeing them at full strength against this Broncos unit, even before the snowstorm started to hit, was very – I mean, they won. They won the line of scrimmage, which is something I didn't expect them to do. Yeah, and NFL Live, my take was Milton Williams. You got what you paid for because he was awesome. uh barmore may play yeah all got kata i mean well i think that kind of brings me to the thing i wanted to also say about the patriots you and i were kind of at the beginning of the podcast alluding to this like damn all those signings hit i was thinking that like when i think about this playoff run you know look drake mays faced some really difficult defenses but obviously hasn't been playing his best football but um did enough with his legs and we can talk about that in a second, but I just think you can point to each of those free agent signings making such an impact in every game. Williams, Tonga, Spillane. Davis. Carlton Davis, literally game-changing plays offensively. Matt Collins with the biggest play of the game here on the trick play. um stefan diggs you know has been like they they really really hit it out of the park la wolf with their free agency class um so yeah like sometimes that's the difference right in like games like this is i was thinking about how bill belichick had that like giant free agency that didn't work out yeah a few years ago and and you know ultimately the the quarterback and the head coach are obviously the bigger changes, but that's a big deal. And it's all over this playoff run. I was just looking down the list of the sign-ins and like their, their Josh Dobbs didn't contribute. That was one that did that didn't contribute right away, but who knows? He might be great. Yeah. Yeah. It might be great in the film room. I mean, scout team. You think that man can't run a scout team? Yeah. He got the defense ready. Yeah. He could, he could take on, he's been in so many systems that he can take on the personality. There you go. All of them worked out. So, yeah, it's a credit to the offseason, and it's not even like – I mean, I guess Milton – I was going to say it wasn't even like there was one big one. Milton Williams was the big one. Chase Vaughn, Morgan Moses. I'm leaving – like all these guys have been good. Yeah, I looked at it. I saw the Morgan Moses one, and I was like, yeah, that's – No, he's been good. Yeah, that's been a great one. It just – it's that Texans game. It's hard to – that's fresh in my mind. it was it was more so on the left side but yeah yeah yeah yeah i guess that offensive line in general went through i mean i liked the digs signing you guys can go i liked the digs and the williams signings which were the flashy ones but i didn't have and i like the davis signing too i remember i was like oh yeah like man corners love it chase on yeah i'm gonna have takes on them signing clayvon chase on like come on he had big plays i didn't love i love the the davis signing but this might just be my bias as even as a Maryland guy I didn't love the Diggs one as much I just didn't think um I guess I didn't accept that the reason why he had fallen off in Buffalo was only because he was good Houston this was my whole point like he was the first down machine before he got hurt yeah he's just I mean yeah yeah he got hurt and he's getting older and I just didn't think yeah I guess I I thought that it was on the down slow but anyway he was awesome in this in this whole run and it also like the funny thing to be to be reminded of with stefan diggs is that i think we have like this this hollywood idea of what a team leader is supposed to be like And Stefan Dix is someone that commands a certain amount of respect in the locker room that everywhere that he's been, he like does the Michael Irvin super hard work example and motivational positive thing that doesn't always, isn't always consistent with stuff. yeah stuff you know i'll be i will say i haven't talked about this at all but like you know he's being accused of not this isn't i'm not saying you're you know you're talking about football but like you know he has the he's like a female personal chef he's accused him of assault and i'll be curious to see if that comes up at the super bowl um because it hasn't really been like a much of a news story right now and he is going to be a big figure at this game so oh no you didn't bring it up i did like i was i was tiptoed around it but i mean i brought it up it's part of it to me um yeah barmore also had some accusations um the thing i do want to make it my bad i know i don't know it's like i'm so like with these things that you get to the point where it's like there's no incentive to say anything about it on it's horrible so then i just like for i i It used to be. But yeah, it's worth mentioning. I do want to hit on the thing about Drake made his legs. I know we were joking about like that was the only offensive takeaway, but it was a big deal in this game. He had 10 rushing attempts for 65 yards, six first downs, including, you know, of course he scored a touchdown on the draw and then called a shot on the naked to ice the game. But while the naked, obviously he was not running through the teeth the defense for the most part that's what struck me dominique is like his ability to recognize run lanes this is very similar to josh allen and if you have a quarterback who can do that who also has size and physicality it is a cheat code because against many coverages and against many defensive looks there is an opportunity there right for a quarterback who can do who can run that way and scramble and um it's always it's been the case with him his entire career that's when he's his best running that style but it was kind of the difference in this game he had a couple huge scrambles through the middle so obviously we're at a point in nfl history where we all understand and accept that an athletic quarterback with the ability to run is much more valuable now i think we're getting into parsing the way that they do it and how and how it threatens the defense and i I think your point that you're making, just to add to it, to make it a little bit more clear for people who is not obvious for it, is like, all right, if you flush out of the pocket, yeah, that's nice. You're buying time. You're creating angles. Yeah, but you're not threatening anybody. When you step up, you're threatening the underneath coverage. So, like, if you have someone running deep, the safeties are being taken there. If you have someone in the intermediate area, that maybe the linebackers are sinking onto, if you show the propensity to step up in the pocket, they will come up closer. And that creates, or they don't. And then you got a full head of steam, yeah, to run at him. So, like, that's just, yeah, he does it in a way that I think that middle, it's just the quickest way between two points, obviously. It's that straight line attack. And it's like it threatens the shit out of a defense. And it's hard as hell to defend. And he's good at it. To put it in like super layman's terms, it's hypothetically a lot easier to gain seven yards by going straight than it is by running around a defense. The problem with going straight, though, is you can take a lot of contact. But May has proven that he is good at doing that. He's a big, really big dude and has the athleticism to evade. It's an RPO in a way. It's a late down RPO. And as you said, it influences the defense for the entire game because if a linebacker either cheats up or somebody's – Right, and that's what I'm saying. That's the option part. He's creating this run-pass option where he steps up and is looking to see what you do. If you don't come up immediately, he's going to get 10 quick. Yeah. I mean, the Broncos played a ton of zone for this reason, I would argue, in this game, right, because they wanted somebody to have eyes on him. But in a lot of big moments, it didn't matter. And it was a good execution. the draw was really executed at the goal line. Yeah, look, I think kind of spinning it forward, a lot of times I'm talking about the Patriots and what they've had because they're going to be obviously their underdogs. And, well, I think a lot of people will be approaching this game. Like, what do they got to do? What can they be better? I also think, like, you know, let's not overreact to, like, a bad game in horrific conditions personally. but I think for Denver like I said it's hard to come away from this with massive takes if I had to have one Dominique it would be that their lack of a deficient running game kind of bit them here because I think if they had one they would have been able to lean on it a lot more instead of asking Stidham to drop back and you know they've invested a lot and it's just not gotten, well, they haven't invested a lot, maybe line, but it just feels like it hasn't gotten to where Sean Payton would like it to be. Yeah, I mean, I think that certainly jumped off the screen. I think this team has issues that it has to address on the defense in the offseason also. And looking at the two teams that lost, I came away a little more concerned about the Broncos roster and less concerned about the Rams roster. I was surprised. The Rams is so dependent on the Stafford question, right? So assuming you're playing and they pay him, I think they'll be fine. Yeah, you need a corner. You've got two first-round draft picks. See what happens with Adams. If he doesn't, that's where things get interesting. I mean, they need a corner. I think they probably need another receiver. like um that but like their defensive line is in such good shape so talented and so young um like i assume yeah often line is good i'm assuming they'll resign curl but like the corners is a hard it's a hard thing to to fix so but it's only it's clear it's one thing that they really got to address they've not addressed it in the draft i was looking back at all the draft they've really just taken a lot of late round shots and this feels like all right let's this year let's get a guy yeah but the broncos you were saying yeah yeah i mean i guess i um like they it doesn't seem like and maybe he'll be better next year i guess it depends on what they want to do defensively so like they are very dependent on their cornerbacks being really good in man coverage it seems that Jaday Barron is not playing as well as they will. Maybe he'll get better, but he didn't get much time. And that was the plan to have... I assume when they drafted him, that was the succession plan for Riley Moss, right? That seems like still an open question there, even though McMillan played well. I was going to say, I think they wanted him to start Nickel, but McMillan just kept him off the field. Yeah, there's work to be done. the linebackers like that was who funga who they signed it was was i mean his limitations he was good for what he did i mean i think he's yeah i guess maybe that's just a difference in opinion like he's obviously stylistic thing too yeah that's what i mean it's a stylist yeah yeah i yeah it's a really good i yeah i kind of feel the way about both teams or i'm like yeah they'll be fine like i i don't think there's teams in the who got eliminated from the playoffs where i'm like woof, woof. A reckoning is coming. Not these teams. These teams are going to be good next year, assuming Stafford comes back. Yeah. I mean, I think the Broncos, there's a few holes on the roster that they can address, but you just feel for them. I mean, the other thing we could talk about, I guess, is the Sean Payton fourth down decision, which Seth Wickersham had a great story, which people should check out because he spent a lot of time with Payton where Payton talked about their process and how fourth and shore in that situation. And he regretted the play he called, which was having Stidham keep as opposed to just running duo. I think if he, and this addresses this as well, like if he knew how the conditions were going to turn, I suspect. But I mean, you know, like the Patriots went for it on fourth and one and nobody's talking about that today because they converted. So I don't have super strong feelings about it personally. Yeah, I don't either. I mean, I tend to lean on the side of encouraging aggressiveness. Like, I'd rather see someone try to convert a fourth down than to kick a field goal in most cases, which may not always line up with. You have to. Yeah. I mean, it may not always line up with what's the optimal decision, but generally as a person who's watching football or who's on a football team, let's go. Let's get it. That's what I would want to do, and that's what I want to see. I alluded to this, we didn't talk about it. Sean McVay not going for two. I found that fast. So ultimately, right, like if he had gone for two, they would have positioned to keep the game going with the field goal. To me, I haven't talked to him about it, but I suspect it was just the time of the game. It was the third quarter, and they were like too early to be chasing points. I think that's early enough to start, frankly, thinking about the point differential, especially because there's nothing to be gained by scoring the touchdown there. So, again, it's not like a brutal, it's third quarter. I get that. I saw some people criticizing him for going for it later, which I think is ridiculous. The Seahawks were scoring, moving the ball on them. They had to score touchdowns. I mean, I assume that someone proposed it. He probably got asked about it, right? I guess my question is, was it even on the table? and that would be about game management. I haven't seen him get asked. Maybe I missed it. If you're listening to this in your Rams fan, let me know if he's been asked by it. That to me is the more interesting time in the game when you start thinking about that. Having talked to folks on teams, I've gotten a lot of different answers. It's an interesting question. It wasn't brought up on the broadcast or anything. I mean, I know everyone has like a game management guy who's supposed to be helping them out. But I guess that was my question is like, did they even ask his opinion? Is this even something that came up at that point? Because I think about this a lot with like us looking for the next offensive mastermind to be a head coach. It's like you're juggling a lot of stuff and things can fall through the cracks. Well, that's it for the championships. Seahawks and the Patriots are in the Super Bowl, which means I have to watch the Malcolm Butler interception approximately 400 times between now and next week. So a bit of housekeeping. First of all, later this week, I am having the amazing JB Long on to talk about MVP and all the other NFL awards, which I could not have chosen a worse time to make my Drake May versus Matthew Stafford. It's a regular season award, people. We will get into that. No, he's JB's awesome and he's super, super thoughtful about all this. So I wanted like someone who really knew Stafford's body of work to have that discussion with me. And I think it's going to be great. But we're going to talk about the other awards too. And I'll let people know what I chose for all of them because I am a voter. We didn't talk about it. There was a few that really were difficult to pick. So this is the coach of the year bowl, isn't it? How cool is it being a voter? when did they like call you or send you a letter or an email or something uh how did this come to reach out to me three years ago i think cool but i didn't realize last year and i think everyone like the votes are going to be public which became a whole thing because i was like lamar over josh yeah uh which is very funny because this year people were like you were josh allen apologists i'm like you literally this last year i was getting the exact opposite like it's just ridiculous okay so that'll come later in the week and then next week just doing one podcast with Ben big Super Bowl preview but I will be in San Francisco and if you are in San Francisco next Thursday I will be joining Dominique for his live show as well as Marcus, Kevin Clark, who else is going to be in there? That's it, just us. Okay, us three. So if you're in San Francisco it's Thursday night, it's for a great cause, proceeds going to help the Special Olympics which I love. Foxworthpodlive.com. Foxworthpodlive.com. I figured there's cool merch. I don't have any Foxworth Pod merch, so I want some merch. Also in San Francisco, another event I wanted to let you guys know about Tuesday night. Let me make sure I double check that I got this right. This is on Tuesday night. This is from, you guys know Omaha. Yeah, it is Tuesday. In San Francisco, Omaha Productions makes this podcast. Shout out Kirsten Seveki, old sailor jack faster tucker tashin uh so they have an event called the night of champions that is celebrating the 1989 super bowl winning san francisco 49ers um it should be great a lot of them will be there it'll be a ton of fun so you can get you can find tickets for that event uh at omaha productions social media you guys just look for omaha productions and that'll come up so yeah all right bud see you in san francisco next week can't wait super bowl is always fun see you there gonna be an interesting one for ya girl oh yeah that's right it's gonna be a little stressful i might where you where are you watching the game from i'm watching it at sofi stadium because we're doing yeah yeah all right adios amigos It's a far between