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This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. You are listening to the Dan Patrick show on Fox Sports Radio. Congratulations to the Seahawks who dominated the Patriots 2913. Although it's an interesting way to say dominating the Patriots, because it certainly felt that way. But it was only nine to nothing. And you kept thinking, golly, if they get a pick six, they get a fumble. They get maybe a long run, something here. And we kept waiting for something here. And then we had an exciting fourth quarter. But it was one of those games where I kept thinking, is New England going to steal this? This great defensive performance by Seattle will be wasted by a couple of plays. But give credit to Seattle. They came up with big plays when they needed to. Drake May was sacked six times. Sam Darnold played OK. Drake May played OK in the fourth quarter. Kenneth Walker, Jr., the third named most valuable player. After the game, Sam Darnold talked about what this moment meant. Sam, what does this moment mean? It's unbelievable. You know, just everything that's happened in my career, but to do it with this team, I wouldn't want it any other way. So proud of our guys, our defense. I mean, I can't say enough great things about our defense, our special teams. I know we won the Super Bowl, but we could have been a little bit better on offense, but I don't care about that right now. It's an unbelievable feeling, man. I'm just so happy for the guys in the locker room and the coaches that put in so much effort throughout the whole season. That defense was spectacular. They were wonderful. And, you know, I think we all thought during the year that New England was going to be there a year earlier, because it's a very young team. They got cap space, they got draft picks. I mean, they are set up for the future. And they did look like they were a year too early there. Seattle, wow, that was impressive. Really, from start to finish. And I thought Chris Collinsworth brought up a great point. New England's defense in the first half was so aggressive, overly aggressive. As if to say, we have to win it with defense. We don't have enough offense. And that's why I picked Seattle to win 24-13. I didn't think New England could score 20 points. Therefore, it came down to could Seattle score 20 points? They ended up with 29. But Mike McDonald, a lot of praise. He was calling the defense in plays while being the head coach. And that defense was everywhere, swarming. And even New England's Christian Gonzalez, golly, he made some big plays. But, you know, you had too many players on Seattle making too many plays. And Kenneth Walker, when you're around running backs like that, because he's not tall and you go, how is he so fast? But he's so good. And there's one play in particular. And Collinsworth even pointed this out. He was kind of walking up to the line of scrimmage. I mean, Levy on Bell created a whole new running style. And here was Kenneth Walker just kind of walking up and then boom, he sees his moment and takes advantage of it. They had enough plays to be able to keep New England's defense on us. But it doesn't matter the stats for Sam Darnold. And I know you can be really picky. We'll go back and look at Tom Brady's first couple of Super Bowls. OK, they won with defense. They didn't ask much. Peyton Manning's last Super Bowl, he didn't do anything. Sometimes you're along for the ride. But what you did to get your team to that point where you can be along for the ride, give Sam Darnold a lot of credit because you get kicked to the curb. You've played for five teams. And now you're a Super Bowl champ. The Seahawks head coach, Mike McDonald, on the decision to bring Sam Darnold to Seattle. John deserves a lot of credit for that process. He's kind of uncharted waters. You have to navigate and to the outside. I probably seem like it happened fast, but he did a great job of guiding us through all those decisions. We're on record with it. Clint had a relationship with him. There's a lot of people in our building that knew Sam that could vouch for who he was as a person. The tape backed it up. I think people made too big of a deal of him of like the last two games in the season, which I thought was his dumb like watch the whole season. The guy played great all year. He came into Lumen and beat us. They won like 14 games. So Clint knew he could do the stuff that we want him to do in our offense. And then I was rock and roll. I think it's kind of sloppy take if you say it was not a good football game, because then you're missing out on the dominance of that Seattle defense. I mean, you can go back to the 85 Bears against the Patriots. You might say that wasn't a good game. You're missing the point. You're watching a historical performance by the defense. And that's what you had with Seattle. The fourth Super Bowl team in history to allow fewer than 14 points, get six or more sacks and score a defensive touchdown. The Broncos did that in Super Bowl 50 when they dominated the Panthers. The Bears did that when they beat the Patriots 46 to 10. And then the Raiders going back to the Jack Squierick pick six on Joe Thysman. That was 38 to nine. That's pretty good company there with some great defenses. And I know and it comes down to as I tell you every single year at this time, if you can run the football and play defense, you can win the Super Bowl. If you get to this point, this game, and given all the tension and how Super Bowls get out of hand, one mistake and then it leads to another. If you can run the football, be as close to turnover free and play great defense. You'll win. And that's what happened again last night. So all the fanfare for throwing the ball, wide open offenses. It came down to Kenneth Walker running the football and that defense being unbelievable. All right, Seton, poll question for hour one is going to be what? Got a couple options here for you. Sort of off that topic, which unit deserves most credit for Seattle's win? The pass, the pass rush secondary run game or special teams? Special teams, special teams. I mean, everybody was really good that you mentioned. But when you they play such an emphasis on special teams in Seattle and when your field goal kicker and your punter are changing the game, they're making their field goals and if they're their punter inside the 10 yard line, huge, massive. And in what that does psychologically, when you had the ball at the 20 or 25, or you have it at the one and you're not moving the ball at all and you have no big play capabilities, I thought that was just devastating for the Patriots. But that that pass rush, if you don't have to blitz, man, is that an advantage. And Tony Dungey talked about that. We've seen these moments where you go, they don't even have to rush another guy. They just have four and that allows the secondary. If you got four going, you got a bunch of guys back there and you had nobody who was going to beat you over the top. Seattle never worried about getting beat deep. It was all right in front of them. Yeah, Paul. Michael Dixon, the punter for the Seahawks, seven punts, 48 yard average. Three of them down inside the six yard line, two returned for a total of four yards. He also was the holder on all the kicks and he got a couple of bad snaps. But to be able to pin them back, I don't think he had a touchback in the playoffs. Seattle didn't have a turnover in the playoffs. I mean, those things don't happen. And I think with Sam Darnold, you were probably waiting for now. He didn't play good in the first half. And I thought New England had a couple of chances. Certainly for interceptions, maybe a pick six. But that Seattle defense was fun to watch dominating. And that left side of the Patriots offensive line, two rookies over there. I was fixated on that side of the ball. For the first I was just I kept watching and those guys were drowning. They were drowning there in Seattle green. And you could tell Drake may mean that's where you see goes. You Sam Darnold famously said he saw a ghost. I'm going to guess Drake may saw some ghosts and will continue to see some ghosts. And I know afterwards he talked about his shoulder. There was talk about the shoulder during Super Bowl week. You got it shot up to play. Might be one of those where he gets it cleaned out in the off season. I don't know how much of a factor that had. I don't I don't know if it would have mattered if he was completely healthy. Just there was no time to think when he went back there. All right, so we got a poll question on the part of the Seahawks team that stood out the most. Yeah, and then this is sort of cut from the same cloth, though. But what actually decided last night's game? Was it the Seahawks pass rush and the Patriots offensive line special teams or coaching? And you got I mean, it's all of the above. Like that was total team. Total. Total. And the only dip was really JSN. It wasn't a fact. I mean, imagine that if I said, yeah, they won and JSN wasn't a factor at all. And he wasn't in Sam played sub par. But they ended up dominating, you know, to win it in double figures. And you kept wondering if, you know, is there something more that New England can do? And here's Josh McDaniels, who has more experience than any other offensive coordinator in NFL history in the Super Bowl. And I kept thinking, I want Drake May to get the ball and get it out of his hands like right away, you know, almost a Brady like playbook of just get it out. I don't care where it's going, get it out. Because if you go back and you're seven steps back and you got that rush coming off the edge, you're going to have a lot of company all night long. This time we're going to stop them. Let's just run it again. This time we'll stop them. What the hell, dude? What are you doing? I think we're tiring them out. Now we can throw that pass. And then you're going, OK, who is their deep receiver? And they don't have one. And it goes back to it wasn't a great offense. And Drake May, what he did during the regular season, I still would look at him as the MVP because of what he did during the regular season. And that's what the vote is. You know, they tabulate that before the postseason starts. He did not have a good postseason at all. Sacked fumbles did not play well at all. But they somehow got to this point. Give credit to Vrable. He did a wonderful job. He's your coach of the year. But man, oh man, Mike McDonald had a game plan. Yes, Seaton. I do. I love the Sam Darnold redemption story. And it's unfortunate that Drake May had a terrible postseason, but really played a terrible game. And I do think it's funny, though, that Drake May threw for more touchdown passes last night than Sam Darnold and Sam Darnold resurrected his career off of this run. And Drake May has got to go back to the drawing board. Well, it's like things that don't add up when you look at them on paper. You know, got to get some weapons. Yeah, got to get some weapons. And I thought that they were going to be able to run the football. I really did. And then all of a sudden, Drake May sprinkles in some passes and that's all you want. Keep the defense honest. And they couldn't do that. That defense basically said, we don't care what you're doing. We're coming after you every single play. Yeah, Paulie. I know the first three quarters were rough, but there was a point in the fourth quarter. They were down the Patriots down 19 to 7. They had the ball with 10 minutes and 40 seconds to go. They go on a seven play, 40 yard drive. They're across the 50. It's second and three and they took that shot down field that was intercepted. I mean, there's a lot of time left. I think that interception, there was 849 on the clock. If they somehow get that to 19-14, the pressure changes quickly. I was wondering and I kept thinking I'd be passing on first down. I would be passing on the non passing downs because I just have to switch this up. And Josh McDaniels did not have a good night calling plays. It just felt like Seattle kind of figured out there was no rhythm with New England. And you're in and you know, Chirico and Collins were at one point thought that the Patriots were going to get some rhythm, then I think they had a turnover right after that. You were just waiting for something where you go. I mean, their drive would be like seven plays, 40 yards. That would be a sustained drive for New England. And, you know, meanwhile, Kenneth Walker, you know, those chunk plays played great. But it still comes down to no turnovers, playing great defense and making them make mistakes. Yes, Tom. I was wondering at half time, as good as a coach as Mike Rabel is or appears to be, what do you do at half time when a team's got that good of a defense? You know, you always say like, you got to make the necessary adjustments. Is there anything he really could have said or done that would have significantly changed what they did in the second half? Well, I would have said we're down 9-0. All we need to do is go out there. We get the ball, start a second and a half. Let's go down there and score a touchdown. And worse, we get a field goal. Now we're down six. Let's put the pressure on them. But I just kept waiting for some kind of rhythm there. And it never happened. It just felt like they were like, I don't know, what are we doing? I don't know. What do you think? I don't know. Hey, we better block that side of the line. Yes, Seaton. And that second half opening drive, I think, is just another three and out. Like that was crucially important to at least move the chains. Get a first down. Be sure to catch the live edition of the Dan Patrick show weekdays at 9 a.m. Eastern 6 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. Stugatz here. I have a podcast empire. It continues to grow and I have brought it here to I Heart. I'm also doing a live radio show from three to five p.m. Eastern because my wife wanted to kick me out of the house. It's called Stugatz and Company Live, which is available in podcast form right when the show finishes every single day. Some of the biggest names in sports, a lot of phone calls. I love you guys. It's one of my favorites. A lot of interaction. Guys not taking themselves too seriously. Those are just some of the things that you can expect from Stugatz and Company and Stugatz and Company Live. So listen to Stugatz and Company Live and our original podcast. Please subscribe, rate and review. Stugatz and Company and God bless football. Taylor's livelihood depends on it. Do it today and you can check all of those out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Bill Kauer, Hall of Famer, joining us on the program. Coach, your reaction overall to the game last night? Well, Dan, I think it was a game to me that you just stated it was a defensive battle. I thought even the New England Patriots for the first three quarters. They're really they kept them in the football game and it was. It was a series of field positions back and forth, not making mistakes. But I think obviously Kenneth Walker had a couple of big runs. I felt like maybe gone away from the running game a little bit in the third quarter when the game was still there. I think a big play also was the end of the second quarter with Christian Gonzalez made a great play on Jackson Smith and Jigba and just dropped that ball near the goal line, which they could have kind of way with just being down. Six or three nothing as opposed to six nothing at the halftime. So it was it was a game again. I thought two great defenses, having a great game for fans. They would enjoy an offense, but it was a game that the defense of Seattle was very, very stout. And I think again, Sam Donald, as he's done in these playoffs, did not turn the football over, made good decisions. His elusive, he was very elusive in the pocket. I think he negated a lot of sacks that that noodle thought they would had and conversely on the other side, Drake may have a very tough time standing in that pocket. What's it like going into halftime? Now you're down nine nothing and it's a halftime that's three times longer than a normal halftime. So how do you make adjustments, keep your team focused and, you know, go back out on the field after a long delay? You know, I think that's funny, because I think the first Superboy was in 1995, the 95 season, 96 Superboy against the Dallas Cowboys. There was the timeframe from there. I did not give much thought of that. I didn't reach out to anybody in the team. The Anth national anthem was much later when he came out of the locker room. And then all of a sudden you're in the locker room, you're much longer. The second time having been there 10 years later, I made sure after halftime, number one, we took our pads off. I said, take your pads off. We had some fruits and some oranges, some apples. Take some time, get away, get in your locker. You have to have your own space. And then it's come back together as we get back in time. Some final thoughts is what we want to do in the second half, particularly those first half, first half, first half, first half, first half. First series of the second half. I always thought that the most vital of any football game is the first series of defense or first series on offense because you either reestablish a momentum or you change momentum and you come out of there with a sense of, OK, we got this thing figured out. So I think that's the biggest thing you did to me was we almost treated like two different games. It's our first half and then there's a second half. And that's kind of like what we did. I know going against the Seattle Seahawks back in the 2005 season, the 2006 Super Bowl. I was trying to figure out what they were going to do offensively, knowing that it felt like the Patriots left side of the line could not handle Seattle. And Seattle knew that. But I like I just kept thinking they would maybe subscribe to the Tom Brady playbook, just get the ball out, make make short throws, maybe keep running the football a little bit. It just didn't feel like they were making adjustments in the second half. You know, again, I go back and if you watch the New York Patriots through the course of that playoff run that they've had, number one, they've had trouble with with their protection. They had five sacks in the three previous games, six in this game. So I think that somehow they got away from running the football or these less strong, quick plays screens of some nature where he didn't have to hold the ball for long periods of time. I even was going to think about to me at some point is go no huddle. Try to slow down that rush. You do something to try to change the tempo of the game because you were you never could get into a feel or flow. I think as a coach, you want to constantly try to tweak some things along the way. It knows that adjustments that you're trying to make, whether it be with your play column, whether it be the sense of urgency we have coming out of the huddle. Try to do some things differently, whether it's a reverse or two at some kind of gimmie plays. You know, we saw the fleet flicker be the big play that they had last week against Detroit. We saw a little bit that in the first series. I think Josh did a good job with that. I think they kind of got away from that because they couldn't get a first down. And so you don't get a first down. It's hard to get into flow on offense. And I think, again, I get a lot of credit to Seattle. I think Mike McDonald called a great game. I got a lot of pressure. Both teams blitz very early in the game for both of these quarterbacks. Recognizing for both these quarterbacks, it was our first Super Bowl experience with minimal. I think they wanted to make sure they were uncomfortable. And I think they both did a great job of that. Then it got to the point where the Seattle didn't even have to rush with a blitz. They were able to get there with their four down linemen and Drake may just never felt comfortable the whole game. Mike McDonald calling the defense. How difficult is that to be the head coach, but also calling the defense? Well, I think I have a lot of trust in your offensive coordinator. And I think that's the one thing I think with Mike, if you look at the fact, after his first year, he changed offensive coordinator. He goes again, Clint Kubiak. And I think that you have to have a large degree of trust while you're doing that because a lot of times when you're kind of the CEO, and I know as I was for my time at Pittsburgh, I'm talking to what we what are we doing with the other side? When one side is calling the ball, I'm talking to the other side. Let's let me talk to the coordinator before you start talking to the quarterback. That's never what we talked about last night. That's maybe we can do this. Can we help our left tackle? Can we do some things? Whatever we need to do, adjust them wise in the course of the game. You always have an ability to talk to that coordinator to talk about what our options are at that particular time. But when you're calling the game, his mic is done up and he's done it for two years. Again, the trust he has to have on the other side of the ball that they're getting things figured out is got to be immense. And I think they obviously with Clint Kubiak and you just mentioned it going to the Raiders right now and the first pick in the draft. And we all know who that's going to be in the end of this. And I think it's that that's a good choice. And again, now for for for Mike McDonald's, it's going to be a third coordinator in three years as he went to Seattle. Talking to Bill Cower, Hall of Fame coach, the NFL today, analysts for CBS. Did the enormity hit you at any point coaching in the Super Bowl? And if so, when does the enormity of everybody's watching? Um, the enormity hits you in the pregame. I feel like the lead up to it, you try to keep things as normal as possible. It's certainly the night before the day. Obviously, you sit there in your hotel room, ready to go to get on a bus. At least when you're on the West Coast, it's not as long of a day. But you're on the East Coast and you have to sit there till like five o'clock or four o'clock. It's like you're looking for a movie or looking for something. I didn't want to watch anything else. And so it does become that when you get to the stadium, you can just feel the buzz. There's more people on the sideline, you know, the the finality that's going to take place, the opportunity, how close you are to making history. And it's real. And I think, again, it's real. Particularly, I know for us, we went to the dome in Detroit. I could just the dome in itself was just a buzz. And so that took another level of noise that we had to kind of deal with. So I think once the game gets underway, yes, you kind of start to play the game and you fall into whatever the feel of the game is. But the lead up to it is real. It's the biggest game of your of your career. You never know if you're going to get back there again, as you may not think that way. But you know that's been the case. We've all seen the history of all the players who says, well, we'll be back. And they never got back. The people who said, yeah, we're so close to being to the Super Bowl and they never get there. So it's an opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to make history. And you understand that particularly as it leads up to the game and as you get to the stadium. Did you see famous people on the sidelines when you were in the Super Bowl? You know, there were so many people. You know, I stayed on the field. It's like you walk between the lines. I mean, I think, you know, again, it's like you walk between the lines and you sit there and you just kind of stay and try to keep things as normal. Try to keep things as routine as possible. And I think that's the biggest thing I didn't. I never got caught up with that. I tried to get the game going and make sure I look into the eyes of my players. I didn't worry about the eyes of people are looking at us. I want to make sure I look in the eyes of the guys that we have ready to play that game and try to just tell them to relax, have some fun. We work too hard to get here, not to enjoy it. And trust what you see and play fast, play hard and make some mistakes. Let it go and just go on to the next play. It is amazing how many teams what they do to young quarterbacks. It just feels like more young quarterbacks are ruined than developed. And, you know, Sam Darnold was supposed to be the safe pick in that draft by the Jets. But the Jets weren't ready for Sam Darnold. Yeah. And, you know, most teams give up on these quarterbacks after two or three years. Here's Sam eight years in and now he wins the Super Bowl. But can you can you be cautious at that position because it doesn't feel like coaches, general managers are? Well, I don't know if cautious is the right word. I always thought this. I think when you look at the Seattle Seahawks this year, I think they were the most balanced team in the national football league. You talk about special teams, Jason Myers and they got Dixon, Dickinson, who's maybe the best punter in the national football league. We saw take play out yesterday with some of the punts he had down in the ball inside the five yard line, Rashid Shahid, all of a sudden as a punt return, they pick him up at the draft, a solid, solid defense as we talked about one of the best in the national football league. And then you look on the offensive side of the ball. Jackson Smith and Jigba, I mean, one of the best receiver offensive player of the year. And then you have a two headed running back with Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet. Don't forget about him through the course that weekend. That helps it off. That's a blind. So Sam, Donald became just a piece of that. And I think to a large degree, that's that's where it was on the other side with Drake May, you know, his legs got them there. But there was a defense. It was a running game. It was a special teams. They did all the little things that he took to get there. So I think there was ever a message that said, you know, yeah, we don't have the quarterback, let's go get the quarterback to win the championship. I think yesterday proved that it's more about getting a complete team and building a team. And when that special guy comes along, I go back to the same thing that that's what we try to do in Pittsburgh. And we won some playoff games with different quarterbacks. But when we had a special guy come along like Ben Rothersberger, that's when championships come along. So I think that's the biggest thing is along the way. You build that offensive line. You build that defense. You get a special guy like Devin Weatherspoon, who can play multiple positions, become an impact player. And you get a running game like with a Kenneth Walker and then a special number one receiver. So you build the things around. I said, if you build it, they will come and they may be that quarterback that you're waiting for that can fill that void. And for Sam Darl, he was that guy for them this year. And I think again, for Drake May, a young quarterback, they got there. He's his future is very bright ahead of him. What's it like after winning the Super Bowl, that highest of highs? And then you have to go back to just normal life. Yeah. And that's why I said to me, losing the championship game was much harder. And I lost that four times. I've lost a Super Bowl once, won it once. But losing those championship games was harder because, you know, you sat there for two weeks and you're looking at the team that you had a chance to beat and you could have beaten them. Look at the Rams and they could have gone there to Denver if they had their quarterback, did they get there? Do they have a different outcome? So you watch it for two weeks. But after this game, everyone's next weekend, everyone's watching in-state basketball. I mean, so I mean, there's nowhere football. There's finality to what you do. And I think that's the thing to me. I know the day after we won a championship, I was in a basketball gym, watching my daughter play basketball back in Pittsburgh. And so it was like, okay, now it's off season comes and there's normality. And my wife was telling me where to go and what time I needed to be there, what time's the game? And so, yeah, so it's just like, you know, when the season was over, it's like the projects were thrown right in front of me. Okay, I know this is where I go. I do have a combine coming up. I'm so like, okay, but until you have the combine coming up, you've got at least a week of all these things we talked about doing. So as this chock, as this start to check them out off the list, you have some projects to do. And oh yeah, by the way, your daughter's playing a basketball game tonight. Gotcha. I'll be there. Thanks for joining us all season long. We appreciate your your insight, your sense of humor. Yes. And can I ask you a question? Like, what's the story behind the bar? This is Green Bay. We went out for the draft and there is a place called the bar. Okay. And we held our, we did our show up there a couple of days at the bar in Green Bay. So what, so what do you have outlined for Pittsburgh? Since the next year, you tell me, because we'll be there for the draft. Okay. So, so can I give you some suggestions? Yeah. Okay. Well, I can't do it right now. Let me look into see what's available. Okay. And like, what kind of like, like, do you have good company that comes with you? Are you guys, you're not a rowdy group, are you? What do you want us to be? Well, I think it'd be good. Like, I think you got to be able to adapt and adjust. I'm not sure what kind of bar I can get you. So are you adaptable and adjustable? Yes. I am a five tool player coach. Okay. Okay. Whatever you need. If you want to get after it and do some, some drinking. Is that what you're saying? You would know. No, no, no, no, no, it's just, it's just, just get in the feel for the, just get in the feel for the vibe. I mean, the vibe, she's, you got to be able to adapt and adjust. Like a game, Dan, like, like, you, I don't know if it's going to be a high score, low score, and I don't know. We got to be able to adjust. You adjusted to the bar. I just want to know exactly that was what you, what came from. So I'm just, you're going to Pittsburgh this year. So I just want to make sure I get you the right place. And I know that you're very adaptable. So I'm not going to concern myself with that. I'm from Cincinnati. That's. Just like Pittsburgh. Oh, yeah. Nice. Well, well, I, I, I, I, well, I love Cincinnati. Check my record. Love you guys. Just loved you guys. We'll, we'll see you in April, perhaps, if you're in Pittsburgh there. And you give us a fritzy. We'll reach out to get some suggestions from you. I have fritzy reach out. I'll make sure I give you some, some, some, some locations that I think will fit the buy that you will bring to that, that, that establishment. Uh, Paulie, do you have coach's record? Of course we do. 22 and nine versus the Bengals in his career. Did you ever feel bad beating up on him? No. Okay. There's back to my lap. My last, my last win as an NFL head coach was down in Cincinnati. And it was an overtime. It was a slam pass from Dick Renbrough, Pittsburgh at the San Antonio homes. And we walked off. We won that game. And when they said who day, I said, we day. Man, okay. Man picked on my Bengals. Yeah. Okay. Well, I, you know, I, I gave you Marvin Lewis. He was he coach for, for Pittsburgh for a long time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, coach. Thank you. Dick Dick LeBow too. Actually, I got the dick LeBow for you and send him back to you. Yeah. And then he came back. Yeah. Great, great man. Great coach. Good man. Really good, very good coach. Good man. Okay. All right. Thank you, coach. Talk to you soon. That's Bill Cower. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at FoxSportsRadio.com. And within the I Heart Radio app, search FSR to listen live. Ross Tucker, CBS Sports Westwood, one NFL college football analyst and host of the Ross Tucker football podcast back at home in Pennsylvania. He took the red eye out of San Francisco last night. How you feeling? Fine. Yeah, I feel good. I feel better than, than I would feel if I did what Fritzi thought I did. Fritzi texted me, Dan. Fritzi thought I flew to London to call the game on radio. No. I was double checking to make sure that he was in fact at Levi's statement, it wasn't one of these things where he's in some studio in England doing it with his partner in England and they're just kind of doing it from there or something. But I, yeah, there's a question. So Todd, you thought I was in San Francisco all week, including on set with you guys. And then you thought I flew to London from San Francisco to call game in a studio. It would seem like a very odd thing to do. And then I was returning back in Pennsylvania. That would be, you'd get a lot of frequent flyer miles, but it would be very strange if you were asked to do that by the talk sport folks. Yeah, I mean, Todd, I'm one of your biggest supporters, but say it out loud. Like say it out loud first. I probably shouldn't have asked that question. He did talk about doing the game and the broadcaster from England was coming over to San Francisco. I know, but I've made mistakes in the past and it's still stuck in my head with like lines or we're promoting things and I've put you in a bad spot where that's not the name of the book or that's not the game that was on Fox or whatever. And I'm like, so now triple and quadruple checking everything even at the risk of sounding stupid like I did here. Okay. How would you sum up the first half, Ross? Oh geez. Um, I never know. Is it a defensive struggle or an offensive struggle and how much of that was good defense and how much it was bad offense? I gotta tell you, it was good defense, really good defense, but neither offense played very well. You know, and I gotta tell you, as a former offensive lineman, I was really frustrated and disappointed with how poor of a job both teams did. Picking up blitzes. I mean, they ran the same Devon witherspoon blitz off the edge where he comes underneath the tackle six or seven times in the game. I'm not sure the Patriots picked it up once. There were mental errors by the Seahawks where guys were coming free. Interestingly, Sam Darnold did a better job of avoiding free runners like Milton Williams and not taking sacks than Drake May, where you thought May had the advantage in athleticism and he ran for more yards, but Darnold multiple times a guy came scot free. He made a miss and threw it or ran or whatever. Meanwhile, Drake May is standing there and lets himself get sacked by a bull rush from Riley Mills or steps up into a sack. I thought the pocket movement pocket presence from the quarterback. This is one of the differences in the game. Yeah, I kept waiting for them to give a little bit of help on the left side of the line or change up the rhythm here. It just they kept doing the same thing. Seattle kept doing the same thing. Dan, I'm so glad to hear you say that. You know, after the first sack that Will Campbell gave up, I said any other pressure that comes from that side, that's on Josh McDaniels. That's on the coaches staff. And Josh was my coordinator when I was in New England. I'm a big fan of Josh. He does a terrific job, but the kid was really struggling. I mean, he struggled the last five or six weeks. Everybody knew his confidence was shot. Everybody knew you could go speed to power. And so did the Seahawks. And they just kept doing it. And I was surprised that the Patriots didn't slide more to help him. Didn't give him more chip help. I mean, that was one of the biggest difference in the game. Well, I was at 14 pressures or 17. I think he gave up 14 pressures in one football game. And that's your blindside, too. So you got two first year guys on your left side, protecting your back. And but, you know, I look at it as that that was an elite defensive performance, special teams performance. You got enough out of Kenneth Walker to keep the defense honest. Sam Darnold, no turnovers. And that's a recipe for success in a regular season game or a Super Bowl. Yeah. And Kenneth Walker, he's one of the craziest runners I've ever seen. I mean, Dan, he almost never runs the ball where he's supposed to go. Almost never. And sometimes he gets in trouble and loses yardage as a result. But it was supposed to be an inside run in the left. He'll bounce it way outside. It was supposed to be an outside run in the left. He'll cut it all the way back behind everything to the right. And it costs him every once in a while. But, you know, both teams were aware of it. I talked with both coaching staffs, you know, for the Ross, like your podcast last week. They knew if you're an O-Lime and D-Lime in tight end, whatever, you never know where the ball is going to go with Walker. And look, he was very productive. He had a terrific night. He's going to give you some lost yardage plays. I'll be very curious to see what the market's like for him and for agency. There's probably some pressure on the Seahawks to bring him back now. He's Super Bowl MVP. Moving forward, we talked about this leading up to the Super Bowl and even this morning, the Patriots are set up for success. Maybe got there a year early, but they do have young players. Don't have to pay Drake May yet. You got draft picks. You got, you know, salary cap money here. And then you have Seattle, who was already made. So moving forward here, Seattle have a better chance of returning than New England. Yeah, I think so, just because I thought over the last month or so, I thought the Seahawks were the best team in the NFL and they proved that. But the issue with them is that division is going to be tough. I mean, the Rams aren't going anywhere. Stafford today is coming back. The Niners are going to get Fred Warner and Nick Bosa back. That's sort of the issue for the Seahawks is just how competitive their division is. Conversely, for the Patriots, you know, I couldn't help but wonder watching that game then, it just feels like it would have been a lot more competitive if it were the Buffalo Bells, you know, and look, they lost the Buffalo. I'm sure Buffalo feels the same. I'm sure the Rams feel like they should have. How many teams do you think watch that game and said we could win the Super Bowl? Well, those two for sure. You know, and honestly, a Bill's Rams game might have been even more compelling, but you got to win. You got to win when you're in the playoffs, when you have the chance. The Rams had the chance to be the number one seed. They blew it in that week 16 game. That kind of came back to haunt them and the bills had more than enough chances against the Broncos that they weren't able to get done. You know, I'll be curious also to see how Drake may comes out of this. He, he looked rattled. You know, he had an awesome season, but this playoff run, I think it wore on him. I don't know how much it was the shoulder, but it was mentally like he, you know, there were times he was just standing there like a statue. He was taking sacks. He wasn't as decisive as he should have been. He missed some throws. You know, I never know, Dan, and there's no way to know if there will be carry over in the next year from that standpoint, because you got to think, I mean, at a minimum, his confidence was not where it needed to be. He never looked comfortable. He never was able to get to a good place at all. And I put that on the coaching staff because you have to put him in situations where get a couple of plays, get comfortable, get any kind of rhythm. I would never have him that deep in the backfield because it just like he was sitting there. He was a target instead of, and I said this to Coach Cower, I would have had the Tom Brady playbook. That ball is going to be out. Now they didn't have weapons and it's easy to say get the ball out. But I certainly like that option better than having him stand back there and, you know, seven steps back and letting them just go, hey, who wants to tackle him? You know, like what happened to screen passes? I mean, what happened? They had a couple of them. And then I just thought they gave up on the run as well. And because Seattle was like, I don't know, you're going to run. Okay, we're going after Drake May. Well, and I mean, Stefan digs at some point, you got to throw the ball to him and hope he makes a play for you. And they didn't really do that. And I go back again to the Devon witherspoon Blitz. That's not pro football, Dan. I mean, in pro football, a lot of times, especially in a big game, the defense will have a new blitz. We used to call it the flavor of the week, right? They have a new blitz we haven't seen. So they get you on it the first time. These guys now have iPads or whatever they're called tablets on the sideline. We didn't even used to have those where they can watch exactly how the blitz is coming. The fact that the Seahawks still got home with witherspoon, including the game clinching play four more times. That blows my mind away that Josh McDaniels and the Patriots coaching staff allowed themselves to continually get beat by essentially the same blitz. That should not and cannot happen. Is Sam Darnold now on scholarship the rest of his career? No, I don't think it works that way, especially not with John Schneider in Seattle. I mean, he's shown that with Russell Wilson. He's shown that with Geno Smith. I mean, obviously he's in a terrific place and they're happy to have him. It is funny. You know what you guys should do or I should do? There were a lot of people, including a lot of Seahawks fans that were not happy that they traded Geno Smith to the Raiders and felt like the organization was A, being cheap and B, that it was a major downgrade from Geno Smith to Donald. Go back, go back and watch that. And the media, the Seattle media too. It's for sure. And ironically, the Raiders went out in the opener, the Raiders and Pete Carroll went out in the opener and beat the Patriots. The team that ended up like the only win that Geno Smith and Pete Carroll really had last year. And obviously that's team that goes to the Super Bowl. But I'm so happy for Donald. I mean, to play for five teams, you know, I think I told you guys this last week because I played for five teams. You're not that good. Because if you were really good, you'd only play for one or two. But you're not that bad because if you're really bad, you only play for one or two. Go get some sleep. Oh, I'm going right now. I will literally be asleep by 11 a.m. is going to be epic. A lot of good time in London. Fritzi, do not do not get a hold of Ross. Yeah, but it's like six hours later. It's like 4 30 in the afternoon. Thank you, Ross. You guys Ross Tucker. This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed human.