Prime Cuts - Super Bowl Preview, Belichick Hall of Fame Snub? Broncos Win With Bo Nix, NFL Coaching Carousel

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. On June 11th, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing. Hey, if they'll kill a cop and bury them, what are they going to do to me? What really happened to the missing deputy? Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert. Listen to Valley of Shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. been a wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we've got some incredible guests like Kumail Nanjiani. Let's start with your cat. How is she? She is not with us anymore. Okay, great, great, great way to start. Maybe you will cry. Ross Matthews. You know what kids always say to me? Are you a boy or a girl? Oh my god, that's so funny. I know. So I try to butch it up for kids so they're not confused. Yeah, but you're butching it up. It's basically like Doris Day. No, I turn into Bea Arthur. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Anna Navarro, and on my new podcast, Bleep with Anna Navarro, I'm talking to the people closest to the biggest issues happening in your community and around the world. Because I know deep down inside right now, we are all cursing and asking what the bleep is going on. Every week, I'm breaking down the biggest issues happening in our communities and around the world. I'm talking to people like Julie K. Brown, who broke the explosive story on Jeffrey Epstein in 2018. The Justice Department, through we counted four presidential administrations, failed these victims. Listen to Bleep with Adam Navarro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Volume. Sam Darnold slinging Sammy D as the Louisiana Hot Sauce Player of the Week. You name him Player of the Year. He finished with 346 passing yards, three touchdowns, Seattle's win over the Rams. My guy Sam Darnold becomes the first quarterback from the 2018 draft class to make a Super Bowl. Yeah. The original Louisiana hot sauce. Stuff is so good. Peppers, vinegar, salt. I put it on chips, eggs, nachos, burger. I put it on everything. I'm having a cocktail. I knock some in there too. Hit any tailgate food with a bold handcrafted flavor of the original Louisiana hot sauce. That is Louisiana hot. Buy you some. All right. I'm not sure where it's going to go. We never do. It's Danny Parkins. So I'm going to throw this out. So when I used to take phone calls on my show, which was mostly ESPN days, then when I started doing it as a TV show and a radio show, I was like, TV shows don't take phone calls, but for years. So I stopped taking them for a while on the Patriots because every single caller was, they're cheaters. So what has happened in America, Danny, is collective amnesia. So during the Patriots run, and I think I was the biggest pro Patriots supporter or defender during their run on national radio. Obviously, the Boston radio guys were mostly in support of it. There was Spygate 1. They lost a first round draft pick and the coach was fined half a million dollars. That's pretty serious. That's like Houston Astros level. You're losing top picks. There was Spygate 2, which people forget about, where they were fined and lost. And that was, by the way, in like the 2021, it was a Bengals-Browns game. They lost a third-round pick. There was Deflategate, where they were fined a million dollars and lost another first-round pick. When you have three gates on your resume, it is reasonable. I said this today on the show. If you have three asterisks, I think it's reasonable to ask, should we pause or collectively? Yet today, it is viewed as outrageous. If we go, you know, how about a little punishment? just wait for a year since, you know, Vince Lombardi, Bill Walsh, and Joe Gibbs had to wait five years to be eligible and still didn't get in in their first. So it's funny how the pendulum has swung. American sports fans, Danny, they want a happy ending. We know that movies do tests. People don't like negative endings. They get furious with the Patriots when they get in the way of Super Bowls and great seasons and get in the way of their team, Spygate 2 to Flategate. But they also don't like when you get in the way of Belichick's Hall of Fame voting. It's a sad ending because they don't want the turbulence. But it is as if there's a collective amnesia, is that literally the whole dynasty, Kansas City, it was rigged, their dynasty, because everybody loved Mahomes, so it's rigged. New England's dynasty is they're just cheaters. And today when you suggest one year punishments, not the end of the world, people are outraged. It feels like collective amnesia to me. So there's obviously a ton of wrinkles to this story. And there's no doubt collective amnesia, like the same people who were outraged at the cheating are now outraged at the exclusion from the Hall of Fame. That is obviously logically inconsistent. but i do think it was ridiculous that he didn't get into the pro football hall of fame on the first ballot and i will tell you why in baseball there is a morality clause yes it is written into it there are like instructions impact on the game accomplishments morality integrity of the game the pro football hall of fame it just tells you who you can vote for there is no guiding principle by the way it's basically only fans with cleats and a helmet you could do anything you want you or no there's no guidelines and and and it's and i'm sure you voted for things in your in your career like yeah do you have a heisman vote i used to and i i thought it was so provincial and tribal it was ridiculous okay i just said this is stupid okay but the heisman trophy vote there's like literally over a thousand people who vote for it yeah so one vote is not that significant baseball hall of fame a lot of people vote for it pro football hall of fame it's 50 people who vote i know so one vote is two percent of the electorate that is crazy so exactly so if you need 80 that means you need 40 out of 50 people to agree and i don't know if you've looked around the world recently we can't get 80 percent of people to agree on anything so so expecting anything to be unanimous is probably unreasonable in 2026 but the pro football hall of fame i think what has been cool about it is that it is the hardest hall of fame to get into because of that like it's you know guys have to wait years there's a long jam at positions there's coaches and contributors and then the first ballot guys and then the the senior committee but it all comes down to this like five person hall it's very difficult hall of fame to get in but like there is still some guys that just pass the test of since it is a meritocracy because there is no voting uh guidelines oh randy moss's first ballot he just you say randy moss he's first ballot and i think bill belichick for all of us reached that threshold bill belichick most super bowls most playoff wins second most regular season wins if he can't be first ballot who is and then you get the bill polly and nonsense of great journalists say he was leading a campaign against them and then he gets contacted and he's like i honestly don't even remember who i voted for and he's like well wait you're two percent of the electorate and you claim you don't know who you voted for that is obviously problematic and then i don't know if you saw uh he's a buddy of mine vahe gregorian he's the only person and if i've missed it in the last hour i apologize but it broke just before i went on the air at five eastern vahe gregorian posted his column in the kansas city star he used to work for the st louis post dispatch then he moved to work for the kansas city star so he's been a midwest reporter and columnist his whole career uh my friend therese paler who wrote for the star and yahoo tragically passed away a few years ago at way too young of age he had a hall of fame vote when when teres passed vahe gregorian took the kansas city vote and he posted a column i would vote uh i forget what the headline was exactly i want to get it want to get it exactly i just want to have it correct so i remember the argument i want to get the headline bill belichick belongs in the hall of fame but here's why i didn't vote for him and he said it didn't have anything to do with cheating and his argument which i do not agree with and he acknowledges in the column most people will not was basically a procedural issue that now the coaching candidate belichick the contribution candidate craft and the senior committee people uh elsie greenwood roger craig ken anderson were all in the same pool and you could only vote for three of the five and vahe's deductive reasoning was well these guys craig he thought that craig greenwood and anderson all deserve to be hall of famers and on the senior committee it would be their last chance of being up because other people would come in behind him so he wanted to take like a last stand for these guys. Now, I personally think that's ridiculous and not how I personally would vote because if they made it to the senior committee, maybe they're not Hall of Famers. Like maybe they're right because they had to go through the whole normal process, the Eli Manning process that he just didn't get in, all that. Vahe disagrees. I don't have a vote. He does. It's worth 2%. But so, but so, and he, so he argues in the column. He's like, you basically had Robert Kraft and Bill Belichick with the same accomplishments competing against each other. So I went with the senior committee guys and I at least respect that he came out and said why he did it. Cause everybody else seems to be running from the heat. And so if every, if 11 people came out and said steroids were my issue, I want 11 people to stand on it. Instead, we have one person saying I voted for the senior committee guys because of a procedural issue. And one person saying, I don't remember who I voted for. So that's just it's not. You and I are logic guys. Your argument of collective amnesia is logical. My argument of, hey, this thing's a meritocracy. He's the best to ever do it. He has the most accomplishments. There's no morality clause. Put his ass in the Hall of Fame. like a one-year punishment feels trivial or whatever. Like, I think both of our arguments are logical. And I just don't, I don't like that no one is, no one has come out and said, yeah, he cheated. So I didn't vote for him. Still, that's ridiculous. We're just assuming like on his behalf and with some reporting from Seth Wickersham and Dan Vanada, we're just assuming it's because of cheating. No one has said it's because of cheating yet. Yeah. And I've said, I said today, I would vote him in. I would have slept on it. If you have multiple asterisks, I think it deserves sleeping on it because I would take my vote very seriously, but I would have voted him in. But I get somebody who said Spygate, Spygate 2, Deflategate, multiple draft picks, three different times, multiple. Like I get it The Seahawks are the second youngest team They be a little tight for the Super Bowl They be a little bit tight my guess is Whereas the Patriots spent million plus in free agency they older in some spots. Defensive line, they're a little older. You know, Stephon Diggs is a little older. They're a little old. Vrabel's been here before. Josh McDaniels has been here multiple times. But I think if there was a team that would be a little tight, it would be the younger first time for Darnold, Mike McDonald, it would be the Seahawks. The other thing that I think is absolutely true, and you saw this with Miami and Indiana in the natty, when you tell young athletes, you may get blown out. Miami's first two series against Indiana, they literally bloodied the lip of Mendoza. They were like late hits after the win. It was so clear. Mario Cristobal had said, nobody respects you. They played angry for about a half hour. And eventually, we're kind of won the war in the trenches, but Mendoza made the plays. And I look at this and I think, I think I may pick New England to win. Less pressure, won 16 of 17, older team, really get, you're really playing. The underdog is such, remember, the dynasty started with Brady being a 14-point dog to the team that everybody loves. Everybody wants Seattle to win. So there's that kind of, there's a little bit of a pressure on Seattle. You're the favorite and you're the popular team. And you look like not only a favorite, you're really more, you are more athletic. If you put in the tape of both, one is just wow. And one is, wow, they're really efficient. I really think I really think New England's going to be trouble for Seattle. Listen, it opened at three and a half and it went up to four and a half and maybe it'll hit five by game time. I bet Seattle immediately. I bet it as soon as Championship Sunday ended at three and a half. And so I got the good number. I think that they are better top to bottom. and I think, yeah, so I think they're better top to bottom and I think that they are more tested. Like they came through the NFC West, New England came through this crazy easy schedule in the AFC East and I think New England loses if Bo Nix doesn't break his ankle and I think New England maybe loses to Houston if CJ Stroud doesn't play the worst football game anyone's played in town. like i i so i i personally that is not to say that i think that they are a fluke i would buy all of this i i loved drake may coming out of north carolina when i first saw him play a game against duke i argued on chicago radio i was like caleb's the guy but the debate should be caleb or drake not caleb or jayden like i i love drake may think you'll be a star this is not an anti-him thing at all i just personally think that they a lot of things have happened where they are like the team that is a year too early that woke up in the Super Bowl. They do feel like they're a draft away from being final. Seattle is ready to go. In New England, their offensive line is still a major work in progress. Correct. And so I just, I think that this is, which is like, it's a very unfair, if I'm a Patriot fan listening to this, I'm like, screw you, man. Like that's like an unfair thing to say because we are in the Super Bowl. But again, it's just a lot of things broke your way. That happens. It's single elimination football. It's pro sports. But like you played the easiest schedule. You had a path to the Super Bowl that was difficult in terms of the caliber of defenses you played. And by the way, your quarterback did struggle against those defenses. He kept fumbling a lot. He's got six fumbles in the playoffs, three lost, three recovered. I think it's just, you're a little fortunate to be here. Whereas I think Seattle, all year, number one in blowouts, number one in point differential, only team that finished top three offense and top three defense, blew out San Francisco in the first playoff game. They have just been, you know, go wire to wire with the Rams again in another class. Like week 16, 38-37, heavyweight fight, classic. The championship game against the Rams, 31-27, championship fight, classic. They are more battle-tested, and they have more impressive blowout margin of victory. Oh, we are in a different class of you games than New England has had this year. So I'm with the favorites, and it looks like I'm with the public. the concern for me like when you're talking about soft factors and confidence is sam darnold went from we don't trust you at all in any big games to oh wow good for you you just had the best game of your life and the biggest game of your life and now for two weeks that's all any he's like well say we can't doubt sam darnold can't doubt sam darnold anymore sam darnold and like throw a first quarter interception and you know all of a sudden like i'd be a little concerned about about that again but i i do think seattle is the better team and i think a lot of stars have aligned like new england to me feels like they should have made it to the divisional round of the playoffs yeah and they're in the super bowl so hey they can win it no doubt but i still think seattle is like you play this game 10 times i think seattle wins seven of them yeah i do too i i i do too i I'm just, you know, again, it's really early. But if the number goes to five, I'm like, that's a lot of points. That's a lot. Yeah, it is. It is a lot of points. I asked Albert Breer today. I said, Tom Brady was available on the market in 2020. Was it 2020? Yeah, it was 2020, wasn't it? You mean before Tampa? Right before Tampa, he was on the market for the league. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And two teams, Chargers Bucks were aggressively after him. Four years later, he was the fifth-best quarterback still in the league. Darnold was available to the market. And Breer's like, yeah, Minnesota and Seattle were it. And I'm like, the hell? Trust your eyes. Brady, Darnold, you're trying to make inexperienced small quarterbacks, franchise guys. And he said early evaluations die hard in this league. And so here's my question. Darnold wins the Super Bowl. Where do you put him in the league? What the hell do I do with Darnold? Since his benching in Carolina, if you go back to that year, 2022, he gets benched in Carolina for the first time in his career. November 27th, he gets his job back. from that moment until today, he is the winningest quarterback in the league percentage-wise and the most 100 passing outings percentage-wise. Like, okay, we've got now four teams, four years, he wins the Super Bowl. What the hell do we do with Sam Darnold? I think, so a couple of things. I think it'd be very difficult to put him in like tier one like if you're gonna if it's gonna be Mahomes Allen Lamar Stafford like if that is your like your top five that I think most people agree on between talent and accomplishments and all that I think it's very very very difficult to say with one ring Stafford gets in there even though obviously lamar burrow and josh have no rings but again this goes back to our earlier conversation it's not just about who won the ring it's got to be there's got to be a blend of all of it but then i think that like it can be a personal preference game between six and twelve when you talk about drake may dac prescott caleb williams yeah Justin Herbert. I think that it's totally reasonable for if he wins the Super Bowl and has a great game for you to put Sam Darnold into that conversation of player, which is a remarkable come up. It's crazy. And the other thing, because I did this on the show on the Monday after Championship Sunday. You're right. First impressions die hard. It's a good way to say it. But if you actually do go back and look at it, it's like, man, we labeled this kid a bust because at 21, 22, and 23 years old, with Todd Bowles and Adam Gase, he wasn't able to save the New York Jets. Right. and then it's like oh well then he gets a he gets he gets to go that really stable great quarterback factory of championship carolina panthers with matt rule and he got a year before they brought in the one quarterback in his class baker drafted in front of him and so bake you know he plays six games and then it's back up for kyle shanahan back up for kevin o'connell but fortuitous injury and first time he has first time he gets to play for a real head coach with real weapons with real weapons he wins 14 games well it's like so i've been trying to think about who is that instructive for i think daniel jones it's instructive for and while i am not the biggest fan and i know you probably aren't either because of size if i'm kyler murray's agent i'm like hey man i my guy's got talent but like can give give him something don't bet bet on the talent like is deshaun watson done like i i i think so obviously that brings in a different whole host of issues, but like if Sam Darnold, Sam Darnold's 28 years old, if he wins his first Superbowl at 28 and he has back-to-back 14 win seasons with back-to-back 4,000 yards, Matt Stafford didn't win a Superbowl until he was 34. Like we, we could be talking about top 10 quarterback Sam Darnold for the next decade. Well, yeah. And Seattle, because they draft so well, they're not paying anybody. I mean, JSN, they're not paying any of these guys. I mean, Charles Cross, the left tackle. Gray Zabel's not getting paid. Most of their defense isn't getting paid. Witherspoon's not getting paid. I'm in worry. The safety's not getting paid. Like, Demarcus Lawrence has been a wildly dynamic player for his age. But when you have a great general manager, the truth is you can pay the quarterback a little more and you don't have a regression on roster. That's the problem with the Bills. They haven't drafted well enough defensively. Yeah, or period. Yeah, they – and, like, there's a big difference between paying a quarterback $65 million and $35 million. I can do the math. It's about $30 million. You know, that's two real starters. So Sam Darnold is a bargain. Yeah, the best way to do it is if you could have Drake May be a superstar on a rookie contract. But the next best way to do it is to do it this way, to have top 10 level production, but pay him the, the, whatever he is, the 15th or 18th highest paid quarterback in football. So he set up for a long time and we just, we all do it, but we, oh, 22 year old kid goes to dysfunctional franchise plays for three years, two years, didn't save them. You must stink. Like for some guys, I'm sure for some guys, it's obviously true, But the guys, to your point, who are mobile, are big, have a big arm, that have all of the traits and don't seem to be like complete knuckleheads, should probably not sell all of our stock in those players. And so I think, again, I think Daniel Jones is a pretty good example of that. Today's show brought to you by our presenting sponsor, Hard Rock Bet, Florida's sportsbook. The big game matchup is set, Patriots-Seahawks. Hard Rock Bet, gonna be a lot of different ways. You can get it on next Sunday action If you haven signed up with Hard Rock Bet never been a better time this week launching a brand new welcome offer for new customers Plus Hard Rock Bet is kicking off its million big game bonus party available to all users. You're definitely not going to want to miss that. And if you're in Florida or Jersey, the big game energy doesn't just live exclusively on the app. Head to Hard Rock Casino property for drawings, giveaways, all the excitement leading up to kickoff. So Hard Rock Bet also offers new promos every day. So if you're listening to this later, just open up the app and check out what you got any day of the week. That's Hard Rock Bet. Download the Hard Rock Bet app and make your first deposit today. Payable and bonus bets. Not a cash offer. Offered by the Seminole Tribe of Florida in Florida. Offered by Seminole Hard Rock Digital LLC in all other states. Must be 21 plus and physically present in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, or Virginia to play. Terms and conditions apply. Concerned about gambling in Florida? Call 1-888-ADMIT-IT. In Indiana, if you or somebody you know has a problem, wants help, call 1-800-9-WITH-IT. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia. Segregation in the day, integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules. We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping in another world. Inside Charlie's Place, black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they would have dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and Visit Myrtle Beach comes Charlie's Place, a story that was nearly lost to time. Until now. Listen to Charlie's Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On June 11th, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing. It's an all-out manhunt for John OJ. Every search and rescue team in L.A. County has been called in to help. Within days, tips started flooding into the Sheriff's Department. The rumor around the drug scene was that a deputy was taken care of. Is this the story of a man who just got lost in the desert? Or of a cover-up inside the nation's largest sheriff's department? A homicide captain saying, Detective, do not find out if this guy's guilty or innocent. Who does that? Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert. Do you have any advice for us while looking into this disappearance? I wouldn't do it alone. Listen to Valley of Shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Anna Navarro, and on my new podcast, Bleep with Anna Navarro, I'm talking to the people closest to the biggest issues happening in your community and around the world. Because I know deep down inside right now, we are all cursing and asking what the bleep is going on. I'm talking to people like Julie K. Brown, who broke the explosive story on Jeffrey Epstein in 2018. These victims have been let down time and time again for decades and decades and decades by local law enforcement, by federal law enforcement, by administration after administration. The Justice Department through, I think we counted four presidential administrations failed these victims. Listen to Bleep with Ana Navarro as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, New England beat Denver 10 to 7. So I think snow or not, I think New England was the better team. But I will say the second half was useless. I mean, it was just survival. It was like a man versus wild, you know, one of those TV shows like. So I almost thought they should have if they had the weather forecast, shut it down for an hour. I'm like, this is brutal. CBS, I felt bad for you. Couldn't see anything. You had no yard they were on. I mean, how often would you look up? I don't know where they are on the field. So there was a moment when they could have gone up 10-0 and Sean Payton elected with a backup quarterback to go for it. I would not have. I would have kicked the field goal to go up 10-0. Now, I did not know. I looked up the weather. I didn't think there was a blizzard in the forecast. I thought they were saying, Tony Romo at one point said, the weather is getting really bad and it's way worse than you see on TV, meaning you can't tell wind necessarily when you're looking at a field and players. unless you see a flag. So, you know, it obviously, you couldn't throw the ball. So what did you make, first of all? I would have kicked the field goal. This is, analytically, I just disagree with this. I've said it in the NBA. I think the mid-range game, especially in the playoffs, matters. So I need a bucket, not a three. I don't care about math. Get me a bucket, get me a stop. And I'm sorry, when you get to the playoffs, I want points, especially with Jarrett Stidham. I want points. I mean, that's what's your take on that? I don't know when it became so in vogue. I mean, obviously the last several years to go for it early in these games, like late in the game of that Ram Seattle game. It's a four point game. No one has any problem with McVay going forward on fourth and four because it was essentially fourth and goal. You're down for it felt like the game right there. Totally understandable. In these first half of NFL playoff games, most of these do not play out to high scoring events, especially in the AFC where the weather plays a big factor. So like you said, even if you don't know the crazy blizzard is coming down, you know, the street here, you have a backup quarterback playing. You are a defensive team. I mean, over the last couple of years, their defense, it hasn't played as well, but has definitely been one of the better units in the league. You have a chance to go up two scores against a quarterback who's what played in this is his third playoff game of his career. and it's all he's coming from Bama, Ohio State. Hasn't played in that many big games the last five years. So you go up multiple scores and Sean Payton, Dan Campbell said this, he got his aggressiveness from watching Sean. I'm never anti being aggressive, but in the first half of a game, when they have zero points, I never understand not going for a field goal when your opponent has zero points. It's become an epidemic of teams going, Ben Johnson's the worst at this, in zero, zero games. It's like, you know, field goal, you get the lead here. second half of games when both teams are in the 30s i get you right if it's the bears niner game that's sunday night or monday night game it's like yeah no one's stopping anybody five minutes into a game or 10 minutes you have no clue how it's gonna play out and look how this thing played out the points were literally the game i mean that that decided the game now they ended up forcing a punt but then george stidham had that fumble play that that's a backup quarterback I mean, that's at any moment. I know Sean tried to speak it into existence. This guy hadn't played. So to think that you could come out and run in the scout team for five straight months and then just play well, especially in a game, even if the winds and the snow hadn't come, it was still 25 degrees. So that that's a big difference than what we just witnessed on the night game. Well, yeah, I mean, I listen, I Denver only had four first downs in the first half. But New England wasn't exactly moving it up and down the field. My take was, if you watch the first two. New England was getting dominated in that. Yeah. So my take was, if you watched, if Sean was watching the offensive line, his D-line, Zach Allen, Benito, were dominating New England up front. So my take is, just take the 10-0 lead. Dude, they may beat you. Instead of may throw a pick six and make a huge mistake. But they are struggling up front to block. Drake May was on the run every play. In fact, it was interesting because I thought the Seahawks O-line, I mean, they had a couple of blitz sacks, the Rams did, but the Seahawks O-line is the weakness of that team. I thought they played pretty well. Left side of it's pretty good. But I think somebody said four teams have never made the Super Bowl. Robert Kraft has made 11. He's made more Super Bowls than the Steelers and the Niners. Think about that. they didn't what they'd been to two super bowls up till 2001 the league had been rolling then for what 30 plus years they'd been to two how many have they been to what bill went to nine now they've been to 10 with in the last 20 can you imagine you know who today was a bad day for being a bills fan you've had the best player in the sport or one of them now for in his prime of his career the last five years and the patriots just bottomed out and then a couple years later They got Vrabel, May, and Josh McDaniels. And they're in the Super Bowl. How about this? The Patriots' first dynasty started with a tuck rule game in the blizzard. Their second dynasty maybe didn't start with this. Because I'm serious, John. I've never seen a half of football that washed out by weather. I mean, it was insane. If you were going against the snow, there was nothing you could do. You couldn't see. which I just, I'm not a, I'm not a snow game guy. I really not. It's like anything else. I don't think anybody, my dad was a PUD foreman, my stepdad. So he got hit by lightning one time or the pole that he was at. So it's like, nobody performs at their best in bad weather. I don't care if it's a pilot. I don't care if it's a PUD foreman. I don't care if it's a quarterback. I'm just, I like to see these great athletes. You know, again, I don't mind, you know, sometimes you play in a rain game and nobody's got, it's kind of fun. Rain games are kind of fun. Guys are slipping around. But I don't know. I just, I looked at that game and I was, I just thought it was a huge disappointment for the league that we're deciding Super Bowls and blizzards. I don't know. It just didn't sit with me well. One big advantage for the Patriots during that game was May's legs. and he kept plays alive and jared stidham who i was told was this athlete i mean i i don't know i didn't really see it and i'm not blaming him he's a backup quarterback like your expectations i had no expectations for him the first drive he had of the game i was like damn he's clearly that's a pretty big arm he threw a nice touchdown pass in the back of the end zone through the bomb earlier on that drive but as a game goes on you and i have talked about this all year you got to be careful about that first drive in the nfl it is it's a fake it's a it's not quite a fugazi but it's been mapped out in the top coaches. Their first drives usually look pretty good. You see Kubiak, you see McVay, you see Shanahan, you see Andy, you see Peyton. They usually go down the field. They're disappointed with three, typically. As the game started, you saw him, he started getting rattled a little bit. He started scrambling when he might not need to. Holding on to the ball. And then by the time they get to the second, there was one play in the second half where May threw an out route, and it probably missed him by like seven yards. And then they throw a back view of the wind and the snow. You're like, you would hit a driver 100 yards into this wind. You know, the wind, and that's why Romo said it. You couldn't feel it. There was a time, like, how bad is it? And then it started, it was so clear that it was like, you can't even function. But that's kind of a, that was always a Belichick thing. No matter what, you kind of felt they had the advantage. You know, Vrabel takes this thing over. They had probably better players than a lot of four-win teams. That's how bad their coach was. But they were not very good. And last year, Drake May and the offense was an embarrassment. And this year, we can talk about their schedule all we want. They did beat the Bills in the regular season. Then they beat Jim Harbaugh, Sean Payton, and the best defense in the league. Like, they've had a pretty good little run here for a month. I would have taken Denver to win. If Bo Nix would have played today, my feeling is, boy, that would be hard not to take Denver. Bo just played the best game of his career. It's interesting. Nobody likes Bo Nix or Sam Darnold. I mean that Darnold was great today and Bo Nix I think I probably would have taken Denver if Bo Nix plays But yeah I mean listen I think it a good Super Bowl I think you have the Robert Kraft returns, Vrabel and Drake May story. Is that the next Tom Brady? So I think that's a great play. And I think you have a Seahawks team. I think the Sam Darnold redemption story is a real thing. And listen, these are two really well-run organizations. Seattle trying to win a second Super Bowl with a new coach, a new quarterback. I mean, it's it's I think you and I have talked about this, and I think the audience has heard us say this is Seattle's GM. He may not make as many deals as Howie Roseman. There's an argument, John Snyder, in terms of just drafting college athletes is the best we have in the sport. He does not miss much at all. I mean, I mean, look at the guys making plays for him today. You saw the guard from North Dakota State. You see Avery making plays left and right. You see, I mean, Cooper Cupp as an acquisition. Well, I'd even say Jackson Smith. When people took him, he was good, but no one thought he was going to be this. And they pivoted off DK Metcalf. They're like, we need him out of here so we can feature that, which I don't blame them for trading DK, but they thought highly, more highly of Jackson Smith than I think definitely I did. I mean, they sure led the league in receiving. He was basically Jerry Rice for like 80% of the first half of the season. And to me, the thing with Vrabel is how often, it probably happened more in like the 70s and 80s. Former big-time players would become coaches. Now, with the money that these players had made, they're less likely to become into the grind of coaching. And D'Amico's obviously kind of rare, but Vrabel, he'd be the first guy to ever win a Super Bowl as a player with a team and then coach that same team and win a Super Bowl. So they didn't lose a road game. I think Kraft gave them the ball after the game. I mean, this team has been – I thought they would be good and make the playoffs because of their schedule, but being the Super Bowl, you can't luck your way into the Super Bowl, especially when you're not the one seed. That means you've got to win three games. So you'd be like, well, this wasn't a great Charger team. They still got Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert, and Jesse Minter just became the Ravens coach. Like they got a pretty that's that's a pretty buttoned up operation. Right. And then D'Amico Ryan's to beat that defense. And then today to win a game in these conditions on the road. I mean, Vrabel. When it comes to it, I don't know. He's fantastic. Yeah. Clock management. It's he's the opposite of Mike McCarthy, where his clock management is maybe the best ever. His use of timeouts are sensational. Vrabel is so good at squeezing all these situational plays in his favor. Let's end it with this. Mike McCarthy got hired by the Pittsburgh Steelers. And as we talk about the Patriots, Seahawks, let's just give this five minutes. So McCarthy, to me, is an offensive Mike Tomlin. He feels like Pittsburgh. He'll win games. He'll be loose. When they face a really well-coached team with a good quarterback, you'll feel like you have the second best coach. But he's a good motivator. Like Tomlin in defense, he does no offense. His teams play with great enthusiasm. But to me, Pittsburgh, once again, is always reminding us how important Pittsburgh is and how they really love Pittsburgh. They love to hire Pittsburgh guys. They draft Kenny Pickett. They hire Mike McCarthy. it's kind of a Pittsburgh thing. They're the inserts. They're very proud. I thought they could have done better. I mean, I probably I don't know if Chris Shula is the answer. You could hire him tomorrow. What did you make of the hire? I feel like the reaction was shocked. People like they really hired Mike McCarthy. I honestly, when John Harbaugh got fired, my jaw hit the floor just because I didn't expect him to get fired. Right. This was a situation where I went, of course, they hired the owner. whatever it was two weeks ago when Tomlin steps down said, I'm not into throwing a season away. We do not plan on tanking losing. We plan on competing every year. That showed me when everyone in the Pittsburgh fan base was tired of Tomlin, the Roonies were not, they, they like going nine or 10 wins. If that is their, you know, the floor, they want no part of the tanking teams. They don't ever want to have a season like the jets. So Mike McCarthy represents at minimum stability of competing and at least giving us a chance to maintain what Tomlin has done. And he can say, I can coach quarterbacks and call the offense. Because in fairness, he's right. Now, I was thinking about this. This is going to be his first situation. When he got hired with the Green Bay Packers, Brett Favre was on the roster, and the year before, they had drafted Aaron Rodgers. He was the offensive coordinator of the Niners who took Alex Smith. Aaron Rodgers talked about this, like he had to get over it a little bit. Then when he went to the Cowboys, they had an established Dak Prescott. He's now going to a team where they don't have a quarterback, right? So he's got to be involved in, which you and I watch a lot of college football. This ain't a great quarterback draft. And I don't know who's really on the open, you know, the Davis Mills and Mac Jones types. There's not a lot of, there's no Dak Prescott or Aaron Rodgers walking through that door. This job, I don't know if you watch the Dolphins, guys. They're two really impressed. At the press conference, it was like, I see why Troy Aikman likes these two guys. They're impressive. But Steven Ross, clearly, we're going to need a little bit of a reset and be bad before we get good because we're in shambles. It's kind of the Steelers. A lot of old guys, a lot of bad money. Why not? Once upon a time, you did this with Mike Tomlin at 34. Now, the difference is that team was equipped. If Tomlin was good, they were going to be good, and they were. But, like, why not just go a little younger, do a reset? And it's like, well, the Roonies don't believe in that. Like, that's a core value of that family, which in a weird way I can respect. But I think this thing is not – you know, when he got to the Cowboys, 2020 was a fake football year, right? Right. Remember? But once he kind of settled down, got Dan Quinn, they were a real team there for four years. Google who was on that team. Like, they had Young in his peak, like 23, 24, Micah Parsons. They had Dak Prescott in his prime. They get CeeDee Lamb. Like, this is not the Steelers. And how are they equipped to acquire any of these players? T.J. Watt is making a ton of money. He's a lot of respect for his career, but it's trending the wrong way. The good news for McCarthy, I think he realizes that. I think the first thing they have to do to me is, and they're not going to be able to find their quarterback unless they go get Ty Simpson. But let's say they can't get him. Do you like Ty Simpson in the weather in that conference or that division? Like, I don't know. They have to switch the money from the defense to the offensive side. So they've had the highest paid defense four years in a row. So you just – and the way to do that is they've got some very good young offensive player, Frazier, the center, Warren. Friar Moose is not young, but he's a good player. They need another wide receiver, obviously, and the quarterback. But my take is they've got – their offensive line's got some youth in it. The running back room's got some youth in it. They're dynamic. I think Friar Moose is really good in Washington. Broke his arm. But, you know, those are two big bodies. He's a good player. Good player. So, and DK Metcalf still athletically in his prime. It's one of those things where they have to do is they have to take about six different defensive players and just get young defensively. If you look at the Seahawks and the Rams, if you really look at the secret of it, is the Seahawks and the Rams are not paying a lot of their defensive players. They're not. They're paying their quarterbacks. They're paying like maybe a left tackle or somebody on the offensive line. They're paying one of their weapons. But I mean, if you really look at what the Kansas City Chiefs have done, as they've paid Mahomes and Travis Kelsey and Joe Tooney, they've kept that defense really, really young. So I've talked to GMs about this. Going forward, the recipe for success is you pay for offense. You just keep drafting defense day young. and the Rams. Who are they paying on defense? I mean, nobody's getting paid yet. Same with Seattle. Murphy will get a lot of money. Leonard Williams probably makes some coin. But I think Pittsburgh's got it all backwards. Pittsburgh paying everybody on defense. So they've got to draft about six, seven different guys. I don't know what their draft picks look like. Whatever. Just draft defense. Let about four guys walk, trade another, and just switch where the money's at. And then once they can do that, then you can go find your quarterback. If I wanted to defend McCarthy, like he has a branding issue, because I saw people putting his resume next to John Harbaugh's. Looks pretty similar. And Google John Harbaugh the last several years with some of these big leads. A lot of L's. Google Mike McCarthy's resume next to Tomlin's resume. Pretty similar. Not a lot of playoff success recently. Made the playoffs a bunch. His branding is bad. You know, John Harbaugh gets fired. Ten teams are calling his agent. McCarthy's begging for a job last year no one will hire him. So this is not – McCarthy's better than the way we speak about him, right? Yeah. Because he can coach. The other thing he's got going for him, Jesse Minter, really impressive defensive coordinator. First-time head coach in a pressure-packed job. That's not going to be easy. You know, Zach Taylor is going to be coaching for his job surely this year. That coaching staff there is more impressive. And Cleveland doesn't have a coach. I mean, Colin, did you see the story that Cleveland makes you write an essay to try to get this – It'd be like you telling me, hey, I want you to do a podcast for us. Can you write us a three-page essay? It's like, Colin, this is a verbal medium. You're like, I don't care. Coaching is, it's a verbal job. You don't, you would never write an essay ever. Even your, the things the team puts out, the PR staff does that for you. It's really, I don't want to go talk about the Browns much, but that's, I Googled, I couldn't figure it out. But I would imagine Barry's parents were in academia because I couldn't even grasp how someone would go. The personality test, I understand. It's a big job. I don't know, but doing homework and essays. So McCarthy and the Steelers have an advantage on the Browns, but I think it's going to be a little more difficult than his Cowboys stint. But he also, he's been the head coach of the Packers, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. It'd be like I've been the head coach of the Knicks, the Lakers. It's like Pat Riley's career. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that football-wise, Colin. The Volume. On June 11th, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing. Hey, if they'll kill a cop and bury them, what are they going to do to me? What really happened to the missing deputy? Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert. Listen to Valley of Shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. It's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast. Each week, we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens. Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, or you still need to wrap your head around the ditty verdict, we're breaking it all down step by step. And we're not just lawyers. We're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. No, I turn into Bea Arthur. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Anna Navarro, and on my new podcast, Bleep with Anna Navarro, I'm talking to the people closest to the biggest issues happening in your community and around the world. Because I know deep down inside right now, we are all cursing and asking what the bleep is going on. Every week, I'm breaking down the biggest issues happening in our communities and around the world. I'm talking to people like Julie Kay Brown, who broke the explosive story on Jeffrey Epstein in 2018. The Justice Department, through we counted four presidential administrations, failed these victims. Listen to Bleep with Anna Navarro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.