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[Assistant] That's what I mean. We're holding you to a playoff standard. I'm not holding you to, oh, they can stop the Giants run game. I'm giving your team actually more respect and expecting that. So don't take it wrong. Again, I'm not here to be a jerk. I'm here just to be


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[Assistant] Call it as you see it and tell you some of the flaws that your team or things like maybe they can


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[Assistant] The Jets had this game. The Jets outplayed the Bucs. Period. I mean, they did. They were the better team on the field on Sunday. There's just no other way to say it.


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[Assistant] You know, Zach Wilson, the quarterback sneak. Controversy, all that. Man, yea, if they gave the speed sweep to Braxton Barrios, it looks like he's probably gonna get the first down. You know, I don't know what happened in the communication there, whatever. I don't know.


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[Assistant] This is the play we're running because we did our due diligence and work to figure this out. Alright, so that was a big moment, of course. Wilson played awesome. I don't know, are we gonna still show the Wilson play? Yeah, we will. Alright, cool. We'll give you that at the end. Alright, good, thanks.


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[Assistant] No, I know, I know. I'm the Tom Brady hater of the world. Alright, here's what I don't like.


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[Assistant] First off, there's 28 seconds left in the football game. It's a running clock right now. As you can tell, the chains aren't even set, right? They just got a first down. First thing I want to say is just like, you know, I,


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[Assistant] We got all these people crowded in the middle of the field like we're worried about them throwing the ball right here and getting a first down. That's what you should want.


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[Assistant] Please, you have no timeouts, there's 28 seconds, it's a running clock. Throw the ball right there. The next snap is gonna be...


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[Assistant] Alright, so that's what I don't understand. You know, I have no problem with the way this is aligned here. But why isn't like he on the outside shoulder of the slot guy? And maybe he on the outside shoulder of this guy?


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[Assistant] That to me is where it does not make sense to me. You know, it does not. And even like to get the presence out here a little bit to just if Brady wants to throw a quick out or something like that, it gets a little scary, right? So that's where at first off the alignment I don't understand. And then they're going to call a defense that


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[Assistant] We've talked about already today. It's the, it's the Chief Spangles defense where


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[Assistant] They're gonna see the slot guy go out and now they're gonna convert it to cover 2. It's quarters coverage right now.


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[Assistant] But the rule is, alright, if number two goes out, we want to make it cover, you know, if number two as far as the slot receiver goes out, we want to then convert our coverage to cover two. And it's going to be the same combination we saw Jamar Chase get the touchdown with.


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[Assistant] And the safety, right back here, the rookie, number 33.


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[Assistant] He takes a horrible angle and it's too late to recognize the adjustment as you see here. At least he opens his hips. He opens his hips the right way. He does open his hips the right way and then takes a poor angle once he realizes the ball is coming, right, and goes for the ball it looks like.


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[Assistant] I don't know. I really don't. But as you can see here, like on the bottom, I'm sure it's the same call, and you see these two receivers down here, it's the same call, but they're staying vertical, so therefore they can just keep going straight back.


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[Assistant] Alright, but because they have this call, now again, I think what they're worried about is protecting the sideline. Which, you know, okay, I get, but...


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[Assistant] So what? Get let him have 5 yards. And now there's 23 seconds left.


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[Assistant] Like who cares? Now there's 23 seconds left and they got the ball at the 27 yard line. Like whoop-de-doo. Again, those are like victories for your defense. I don't understand why, you know, maybe we're going for the jugular here. But again, either way, it ends up being a one-on-one downfield.


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[Assistant] You know, Brady throws a great throw to Cyril Grayson, and 33 can't make the play, and this was the play of the


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[Assistant] You know, they were outplayed the Buccaneers, uh, throughout the day. This guy made some great throws. He really did.


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[Assistant] I mean, his arm is still as good as just about anybody in the NFL other than maybe the two or three superstars or laser throwers we have. Uh, but Brady, you know, that's what Brady brings to the table is even when you're down,


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[Assistant] And even when Antonio Brown's a distraction running off the field and quitting in the middle of the game,


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[Assistant] Send people down the field. They're not a dink and dunk football team. They're either we want to throw for 20 or we're going to throw a screen because they're, I think they, I think they are the number one screen team in football. Actually. They're the, to me, the best screen team in football, but yeah, he's, he's going to make his share of plays. He's got some talent. There's no doubt about it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, Zach Wilson to me is starting to show why he was the number two pick in the draft here ever since he came back from his injury with his knee. I mean, to me it's, the play has gone better and better every week. The thing I want to make sure people realize, I mean, the talent's real. It's real. His, his movement's real.


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[Assistant] His ability to read defenses is real, he's got great feel in the pocket, and he already has one of the quickest releases in all of football, and he's got, of course, a really strong arm to go along with that. Everything is going in the right direction for Zach Wilson. This play, this play is awesome. I mean,


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[Assistant] This is bi- it's just double post, okay? He's gonna throw the ball right down there to about the four or five yard line, hang in the pocket. I mean, there's gonna be def- decent coverage by the underneath coverage, and he just goes, I'm gonna throw a laser by you guys and right over, you won't even be able to stick your hands up in time.


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[Assistant] I mean, this, and this is, you know, again, I'm trying to pick one play that kind of shows what he did this game. He made a lot of great throws into tight windows down the middle of the field.


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[Assistant] So you see there, I mean the body's in a pretty good position throwing the football. You can see.


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[Assistant] Again, look at his arm speed. His arm speed's real. When he cocks it back and goes, that arm is flying. I mean, it is. It's a real thing. But this ball, the way it travels through the air, I mean,


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[Assistant] Again, I just want everybody to see. These guys are in a decent spot here. He's trying to throw to the ball like only 8 yards behind them.


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[Assistant] And it's not like he can throw some lollipop over the top of him and just go, well, I'll just throw it down and he'll drop it in there. No, not with the safety baron down on the guy. And of course coverage on the corner on the outside. Alright, so that's where it's been a lot of this over the last four and five weeks.


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[Assistant] Well, again, I know I'm a little biased because he was my guy, you know, coming out. Oh, and this angle doesn't even show up better. I know I'm a little biased because he was my guy coming out in the draft. But again, I'll say it right now. I mean, if you're making me choose between Zach Wilson or Trevor Lawrence, I'm taking Zach Wilson every time.


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[Assistant] I am, definitely. To me, it's a year that's gone in two different directions. Zach Wilson continues to get better. Trevor Lawrence has gotten worse over the last six or seven weeks. And that to me is in Jacksonville why it's concerning and they gotta get the right guy in there to get him going.


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[Assistant] Uhm, you know, Trevor Lawrence has had some real inconsistencies throwing the football. He does. Let alone he does not have great feeling in the pocket. But I told you before the podcast.


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[Assistant] Trevor Lawrence, you could watch him throw 10 out routes, and he'll throw it 10 different ways. Or not 10 different ways, but 6 or 7 different ways.


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[Assistant] Like as far as arm angle. Arm angle, the way he steps, the way he throws it, this time he might bend, this time he might step in the bucket, the bucket, this time he comes sidearm, this time it's way over the top. So that to me was where he misses throws where you just go, man you're too talented to miss that throw. He's gotta fix some of that stuff.


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[Assistant] Zach Wilson's become a machine of throwing the football. And, I mean, look, first off, look at this throw here.


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[Assistant] I mean again, that's not like wide open. That's not wide open with this guy, he's gonna throw to him. With this guy here, this guy here, the safety's right here at this point. I mean, first off, that's good anticipation to know like, you know, when I gotta throw it, where I gotta throw it, and


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[Assistant] Yeah, this angle does it more justice, right? When you see it and you go, whoa, that was like some freaking throw. The way that ball cleared over that linebacker. I mean listen, this is how you know a ball is flying.


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[Assistant] He is 20, 16 yards away from this linebacker. And the linebacker can't react quick enough to get his hand up. He jumps too late. Because the ball is traveling at such a pace.


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[Assistant] Thanks, man. I appreciate it. It was good having you here today. You always ask the right questions. I'm sorry, I probably talk too much and you're probably like, oh, would you shut up and move to the next play? That's the whole point.


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[Assistant] Alright everybody, check out the podcast tomorrow, Thursday. It's the me and Florio picks podcast. Alright, we got that. That's going on. And again, stay involved through social media. Uhm, I look


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[Assistant] I don't pay attention too greatly because I don't want to get pissed off and get in a Twitter war. Pete's best at shoveling the stuff I need to see.


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[Assistant] I'm a viewer of social media, but I don't get in the weeds with social media, okay? That's where I've learned, that's the line for me. As far as not driving myself crazy or getting myself fired from NBC. Alright, that's it. Everybody be good. Check out the Thursday podcast with Florio, like I said.


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[Assistant] Please subscribe, rate, review. Uh, Chris Sims on button presented by Under Armour. Ahmed, you the freakin' man. Thanks as always. Clap it up. Clap it up.


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[Assistant] Yo, yo, what's up? Come on, man. Subscribe on YouTube to Chris Simms unbuttoned podcast. I need you. Please hit the subscribe button, please.


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[Assistant] Hi, I'm Mike Tirico and thanks for watching. Make sure to hit subscribe for the latest news and highlights from NBC Sports.


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[Assistant] Okay, well that's what does happen. And I, I, I try not, I literally sit here as I pick the games and go, ooh, and I go, this could be one there. The upset goes. And then I sit there and go, wait, wait, just pick who you think is going to win the game. Don't try to pick it based on making up a game against that stupid Ted Floreo. Okay. Thank you.


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[Assistant] Well no, this is the Florio Bowl, okay. I mean, this is, it's the Steelers who live right up the road from you and you should be a fan of them. You have a great feel for the post of their team and then your, your favorite team in all the world, the Minnesota Vikings. Yes, you have to lead this off. So I want to hear where you're going to go with this one.


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[Assistant] You just want to see where I'm going so you can try to be the opposite. I won't. I never do that. I promise you I won't. I'll put in mine as you talk so you know if you want to do that.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I'm disappointed that you're going that way. I guess you love them today, uhm, instead of love them not, but. No, I love being right. Yeah, I'm going with the Vikings too. I am. You know, I look at it this way. Hey, neither defense is very good.


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[Assistant] No, they're not. We know that Vikings are 30th in football. I think the Steelers are 22nd or 3rd right in that range, you know, but then you flip it over and you go, well, the Vikings offense is significantly better than the Steelers offense. And you know, within that a Steelers defense that, you know, this is not like,


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[Assistant] They gotta defend two things. I mean, I know Dalvin Cook is still iffy for tonight. It looks like he's trending towards playing, but it doesn't really change my thought that much. Madison's really good. They're a run game with Madison. You still have to worry about it and, and, and, and, you know, put resources into stopping it.


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[Assistant] You've heard me say over the last few weeks, Pittsburgh thin up front on the defensive line, not a lot of depth there, but then you couple that with a pretty damn good pass game to go along with it. That can make big plays in the pass game.


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[Assistant] You know, they do in their own way make you defend the whole field. So I just look at that as advantage, advantage Vikings as in like, okay, Hey, the Steelers offense or the Vikings defense. I know the Vikings defense is worse, but the good thing is for the Vikings tonight, it looks like they're not a healthy, a healthy defense for the first time in a while. Everybody together.


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[Assistant] So I look at that and go, okay, we know Pittsburgh wants to run. I don't, they're not a great running team though. I don't know necessarily think they're healthy front seven of the Vikings. I don't necessarily look at that as like, oh wow. Okay. They're going to be able to do that and therefore it's going to go into the passing game.


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[Assistant] The Vikings pass the events not good either, but you know, neither is the Steelers pass offense. It's just, it's good enough to make a play here and there. And that's where I just can't get behind the Steelers. Again, I'm not coming off just because they won last week. I'm not coming off that there's no way the Steelers make the playoffs. I just don't see it. I'm going Vikings 30 to 24.


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[Assistant] So today you put him in the CFL, if things don't go well. Earlier on the show today, you said if Jared Goff didn't play well last week, he'd be bad in the CFL. So you put two people.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I'm with you all the way there. I think you make a lot of good points. That concerns me about Carolina. You don't know what to get from Carolina. Hey, I know their defense is good. I get it. It's real good.


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[Assistant] But it is a little bit predictable. You know, Matt Ryan and that offense, I know it's not great, but they're kind of gritty and tough and hanging in there every game.


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[Assistant] You know, they stay somewhat patient to the run, even though it's not a great run game. And of course, Matt Ryan's still really good. They got a good system. And with Cordero Patterson, like we've talked about with pits, you know, gauge, it's not the worst group in the world and.


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[Assistant] You know, added to what you said with the question marks on the Panthers and the dysfunctionality a little bit and just never knowing what to expect with their offense.


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[Assistant] You know, the Falcons defense is not real good. No. But I mean, Carolina can't do anything to take advantage of it. At least they don't show me that possibility. So I'm with you. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go with the Falcons in an ugly kind of football game. I think they lost 19 to 13 the first time around. Uh, I'm gonna put them 20 to 13 victories.


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[Assistant] I'm gonna say yes, I am. I'm gonna go with the Browns. Again, I feel like...


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[Assistant] Baltimore's reeling a little bit. There's no Marlon Humphrey.


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[Assistant] You know, they're another team as you saw as the fourth quarter last week against the Steelers. They kind of wore down. They're not real deep. They don't have a real deep defensive line.


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[Assistant] You know, I think Cleveland being really desperate in this football game, certainly more desperate than Baltimore, who's still sitting there at eight and four. Man, you're Cleveland at home. You go down six and seven, go to six and seven. Wow. You know, as I mentioned, you know, the last time


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[Assistant] Hey, you know, Cleveland messed up some opportunities in that football game to score some points, you know, did some dumb things on defense. I think they have the personnel to slow down Lamar and company. I do.


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[Assistant] And hopefully they have a wrinkle or two to add to that. The Ravens losing Marlon Humphrey is a big deal. It really is. He is the guy that allows them to, hey, you got him and we're gonna do all this kind of different stuff over here. That, that, that is an issue, you know, certainly. And, you know, I just think, again, ultimately, I think the Browns have


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[Assistant] A better potential and a better roster at this point than the Ravens. The Ravens are just tough and battle tested. I think this is one the Browns eke out. I think it's like 17 all late in the game. Brown score a touchdown to go ahead 24 17. They win the football game at


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[Assistant] I think so. I mean, I think this is in the category of, you know, maybe winning the prize of the ugliest game of the week. I mean, that's for sure. Again, you've heard me say a few times this year, the Texans defense is not as bad as it statistically says.


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[Assistant] You know, they will be able to stop a crappy run game from Seattle.


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[Assistant] And then Lovie Smith, of course, he's his most stubborn SOB in the history of football, trying to get him out of a two safety defense. So he's going to be protected on the outside against locket and Metcalf, you know, versus the corners. There's not going to be a whole lot of times I would think they get one-on-one opportunities, but as we know, Hey,


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[Assistant] You know, no Jamal Adams, but that Texans offense stinks. What are you going to really tell me they're going to do that day? You know, I don't know. The Seahawks defense, again, it's not the greatest, but last five or six weeks for the most part, it's been respectable. I know there's no Jamal Adams, but I don't think it's going to make a huge difference. I think the Seahawks win an ugly 21 to 10.


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[Assistant] I mean, again, I don't love the way the Chiefs offense is playing. We know that.


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[Assistant] But the advantage they have in this matchup and why we saw it, you know, a few weeks ago is, you know, one, they can protect the passers so they can stop N'Gakue and Max Crosby from causing too much havoc.


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[Assistant] You know, they got that piece and then after that, well, what else is there to worry about with the Raiders? You know, and the, the chiefs have seemed in my opinion to figure out, you know, the code cracking of the Raiders defense. I mean, Gus Bradley and company, they just don't do enough on the defensive side of the ball. They're sound. They're never out of position.


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[Assistant] But when you got an offense that has some answers for that, and a quarterback who now is comfortable against that scheme and, you know, understands how he has to play against them, I just think they'll surgically dissect the Raiders once again. And, you know, the Raiders offense


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[Assistant] Yeaah, I mean again, we haven't seen a whole lot of good there other than the Thanksgiving game, you know, with Dallas not having answers to stop their pass game. Kansas City's defense playing real well right now. They can cover you man to man and then they sprinkle in a few creative, disguised zones and things like that.


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[Assistant] I just don't see how the Raiders win the game. I'm going 31-20 Chiefs.


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[Assistant] They need something, there's no doubt about it. They don't have that third element right now. Like, right? We've had this discussion before. I mean, you just, you gotta have more than two guys to be a good offense. I mean, we know the quarterback, okay, but I'm talking about the other part of that.


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[Assistant] You know, it can't just be Hill and Kelsey every week. It just can't. You know, as we talked about, great offenses in the history of football have three guys, maybe four guys, you know, maybe four and a half to where you just go, holy crap. How are we supposed to stop that?


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[Assistant] And the Chiefs don't have that right now. It's a, it's, it's, it's Mahomes playing less than Mahomes caliber type of football. And then it's all about.


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[Assistant] Man, Kelsey and Tyree kill and nobody ever seems to be consistently able to show themselves within that offense. And it's, it's frustrating right now. It is. Um, but I still think they're going to win this football game.


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[Assistant] Actually, I'm looking in our sheets here and I have the same score you do. I'm going Saints 24-13. Yeaah, that's, that's, you know, I just look at it and go...


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[Assistant] The first off, the Jets are a really beat up football team. They got a laundry list of guys who did not participate in the Wednesday football, the Wednesday practice. I think a lot of them are going to be out. We know they were already kind of a team that was missing a lot of players to begin with.


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[Assistant] Right? The Saints defense, it's still somewhat of a force to be reckoned with here. It wasn't like the Cowboys moved the ball up and down the field on them. You know, interception pick six.


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[Assistant] Busted a run when they had the lead and the Saints probably taking a chance to kinda stymie them a little bit that way.


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[Assistant] You know, and even Taysom Hill, I know the finger. Yeah, it's a little concerning, but I think the element that he can bring just even to the run game with Kamara back, it'll be enough to where they just want to ugly slugfest, kind of play through their defense.


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[Assistant] Hopefully Taysom Hill understands he can't take some of the chances he did the other night with that finger that caused him some interceptions, but Saints 24 13.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. I don't see it being much different. You know, again, yeah.


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[Assistant] They outplayed the shit out of the Texans in that bad weather game. They did some stupid things. I mean, even with that, it was like four to zero in the turnover margin. They had chances at the end of the game to still go down and drive and win it.


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[Assistant] Yes, I, the Titans, I don't expect them to fall apart. They just, they've had a week or two weeks in a row of doing some dumb crap.


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[Assistant] You know, again, the misleading loss against the cheat, I mean the Patriots, you know, hey, breaking a long run, fumbling.


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[Assistant] Interception on the one yard line. You know, Tannahill missed a wide open touchdown pass. Then they missed the field goal behind that.


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[Assistant] So, they've made some self-inflicted wounds here. The Jaguars are only capable of running the ball. Their pass offense is stinky dinky sucky ducky. Okay? And the Titans can stop the run. As good as anybody in the game. And they're getting, they're healthy in the secondary for the most part.


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[Assistant] Washington. They're playing better football.


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[Assistant] The last four or five weeks, every game with Washington, I go, man, that's the proper game plan on both sides of the ball. You know, they're doing a lot of good things. They really are. What I worry about with Washington a little here is that they're, they're another team that's, they're a little banged up.


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[Assistant] I don't know what to expect from Landon Collins. He didn't practice yesterday. You know, Jonathan Allen's beat up and got an injury. Montez sweat. I think we thought he was going to come back. Now he's on the COVID-19 list.


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[Assistant] You know, so that worries me a little bit. Curtis Samuel can't seem to stay healthy. He missed practice because of the groin injury yesterday. You know, they need that extra weapon to go with Terry McLaurin. You know, if they were at full strength,


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[Assistant] I think I'd pick Washington to win the game. I would. I have concerns about Dallas right now. Dallas is offense. I think what I've come to the revelation of over the last few weeks watching them is, you know,


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[Assistant] They can't dominate the run game like they could. They need to play Tony Pollard more. Period. I don't know what's wrong with them. Like stop being so stubborn. It's not even close. He's way better than Ezekiel Elliott, who's not even 100%. Even when they're 100%, he's better than Ezekiel Elliott.


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[Assistant] So stop doing this to your football team. Give Pollard the majority of the carries. You made a mistake with the Ezekielia contract. Your fault.


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[Assistant] Okay, now, you know, so that, and with the other revelation I came to, so now they can't dominate the line of scrimmage, and the passing offense, good Mike, but I don't look at it as overly schematical, tough


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[Assistant] To figure out for defenses. It's a little too reliant on the Jimmies and the Joes. And that's why, hey, it was great early on in the year because they were running the ball and then everybody was healthy and Dak was playing good and it didn't matter. But now you don't run the ball and you miss a receiver here and there.


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[Assistant] And teams have caught on to the pass game a little bit. They struggle that way. And that's why I really wanted to go Washington, but I just can't do it because of the state of their, their injury status.


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[Assistant] It is. I have them covering, but only, I mean, through ugliness. And because I just don't know, I don't know if Detroit's gonna really be able to move the ball consistently during the day.


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[Assistant] You know, that's what I worry about. The Denver Bronco defense is good. It really is. In all areas.


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[Assistant] You know, they're, they're not the, the most, the, the, the, the best run stopping team. They had a little issue with that in the middle of the year, but it's not bad. It's still good.


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[Assistant] And, you know, I think between the fact that they'll be able to figure out the pass game of the Lions, Jared Goff outside in Denver,


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[Assistant] They'll be able to put another egg or two into the run game basket as far as stopping that and the Detroit Lions run game that way. So I just look at that and go, yeah, okay. I don't expect, you know, a whole lot of success there. You know, on the other side, I could see Detroit giving the Broncos some issues. I mean, Teddy Bridgewater is the quarterback.


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[Assistant] And of course they are. You know, he refuses to be aggressive or really go to try to win a game. And that's the disappointing thing about last week. It's just disappointing.


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[Assistant] He's just gonna check it down to make sure he's not the reason they lose.


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[Assistant] And then, oh wait, we're down by two touchdowns and I'll try to turn on the gas here a little. It's annoying with Teddy Bridgewater. He lets teams hang around and he'll do that with Detroit here.


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[Assistant] So I got him winning 23 to 13, but it'll be ugly. You know, I could see that 16 13 with five minutes left in the game and they go down to finally score a touchdown to put it away. That's kind of how I look at it.


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[Assistant] I know, and I think a lot of it is because of what I said. You know, you heard me rant there, and you know, I know everybody in the world loves Teddy Bridgewater, and it's not personal, it's just about the play on the field. He's, he's gonna let you hang around. He just is.


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[Assistant] He's, he's not going to ever kind of go for the juggler when it's there to be had or do that or make the play. You know, oh, there's a guy open by two feet down the field for a 40 yard gain.


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[Assistant] Well, everybody in football would throw that, but he's gonna look for something underneath, and there's too many plays and yards left on the field with him weekly, to where I think, you know, what you said could happen. I'm just going the ugly, putting one away later. Uh, so yeaah, I certainly won't be betting on this game, I don't trust it at all.


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[Assistant] Well, I like the Chargers, you know, uh, I mean, what do we know right now? Some of these guys might be back, right, for the Chargers, cause this is close contact, right? Am I really?


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[Assistant] You know, I'm picking them to win. I get it. I'm picking them to win. I know that. But you know, according to how much they win, that's the question. It really is. And Daniel Jones was a limited participant in practice yesterday.


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[Assistant] So that's where I just go, I don't know what the hell to expect here. Saquon's ankle is hurt. Kadaria's Tony's dealing with an injury.


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[Assistant] So I guess there's a lot of unknowns about the football game. You know, I, okay, if we take it that somewhat full strength or just try to say, all right, the Chargers got enough pieces on offense and defense. Let's say Mike Williams comes back because the close contact was Monday and he can play, you know, they still got Guyton, you know, they got a few other guys that are good.


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[Assistant] You know, to make up for it. Hey, but yeah, I'll look at it this way. Yeah, we know the Giants defense, not a great pass rush. Yes. And I would think Herbert and company could dice up the Giants in the, in the pass game. I would think they could do that.


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[Assistant] And then on the other side of the ball, the Giants aren't good enough to take advantage of the less than run defense of the Chargers. And of course, yea, if it is Fromm, it could be a disaster. So, I mean, if Fromm is playing, I want to go, it's going to be 30 to 27-13.


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[Assistant] Chargers. If it's Daniel Jones and company, I might


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[Assistant] Change it a little bit. So that's where I'm really conflicted. I'm gonna go as in, I'm gonna go Chargers on this one, 24-13. That's where I'm gonna pick this one. So I got them covering, but I think it'll be an ugly football game.


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[Assistant] No, no, it's like 300 plus pages somewhere I guess. And you know what Mike, I'm so crazy. That's the only book I read and I'm honestly thinking about reading it again. I really am. That's how freaking weird I am about that subject. But really only a historian about that and football. Other than that, not a historian.


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[Assistant] Yeah, this is, it's a coin flip football game. It is. You know, and I think I'm going to boil it down to like really one thing that kind of worries me a little bit. You know, first off, you know, I, I guess in my heart of hearts,


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[Assistant] You know, if Deebo Samuel was there in company, I do think the 49ers are probably the better football team. I do. He's not there. You know, and I don't think he's gonna be. That, that makes me question it a little bit to a degree. Alright. And then, you know, I think the other thing that I get bothered with from the Cincinnati standpoint


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[Assistant] It's just their ability to protect the passer. That's what I get scared of a little bit.


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[Assistant] And the 49ers can rush the passer and they can get there with their front four. You know, so I've gone, this is a game I've gone back and forth with. Uhm, but I looked at like, again, the injury report, man, the Bengals got a lot of injuries on their roster right now. They're a banged up football team to go as well.


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[Assistant] I like the bangles. I like a lot of the things they do. I don't know. There's just a part of me that can't, I can't pick them to win this football game. I can't, they got a good run defense. I understand that this is a different animal and Shanahan and what he brings to the table. I'm just going to go the 49ers, eke out a ugly


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[Assistant] You know, I don't want to say ugly, but they just figure out a way to win. I'm gonna go 27-24. But don't feel real good about it.


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[Assistant] That's a tough one. I can't wait for that game though. I think that bangles 49ers game is really interesting and intriguing and yeah, I can't make it my best bet just because I do think it's a, I could see her certainly seeds, you know, your score and 23 22. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm excited for that one.


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[Assistant] I'm going bucks. I-I-I mean, I feel like the bucks are just kind of like in coast mode. They know how good they are. They are really good.


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[Assistant] You know, their secondary is getting healthier and better as we go along here. They were really close to blowing out the Falcons last week. I mean, really close. Brady's playing awesome.


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[Assistant] You know, the Bills, again, I think are just compromised in too many ways against the Buccaneers offense. You know, again, this is another one where I go, they gotta worry about getting overpowered in the run game.


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[Assistant] They have to worry about that. So you know, and again, the Bucks, if they, they're, they're going to do whatever they got to do to win. Like last week they went away. There's no way that Atlanta can rush us, rush the passer and get to Brady and they can't cover us. Let's just throw the ball, the ball every play. They did that.


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[Assistant] But if they feel like they gotta run the ball to win, they will. And they have a big powerful offensive line. I think they create a lot of mismatches across the board for a good Buffalo defense that I respect. And I just don't know. Can McDermott come up with a game plan with Leslie Frazier that's


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[Assistant] Creative enough to blitz and get pressure on Brady and company, you know, maybe I would say yes if I felt a little bit better about their corners, but I don't feel great about their corners being able to match up against the Bucs wide receivers. So I look at that and then the other side of the ball. Hey, you know, Josh Allen, I'm sure he'll make a few plays in this game. There's no doubt about that. The Bucs are not, you know,


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[Assistant] Totally hitting on all cylinders and pass defense right now. But we know the Bills can't run the ball. And now that the Bucks are going to be able to go, okay, we can play the pass all the time, the pass rush going. I just don't see how the Bills win the game. I really don't. I'm going Bucks 31-21.


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[Assistant] I hope they do. And yeah, we're proud to be sponsored by under armor. Yeah. I read this read three times a week. I mean, I should have it memorized, but I'm dumb and blonde and from New Jersey, so I can't remember it. All right. We are supported by under armor and just like us under armor wants to give you an edge. They are focused focused on performing better and taking their game to the next level.


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[Assistant] Everything from running shoes that propel you forward. Get Florio some damn running shoes so he can run on the treadmill and feel good.


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[Assistant] To hoop shoes that give you insane grip. He doesn't need hoop shoes. He has no game, so don't worry about that. They even make hoodies that reflect energy. I think he wants one of those hoodies to reflect the bad energy the Vikings give him on most weeks. Alright? And we're not just about the end result, winning or glory. Under Armour is about the hard work.


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[Assistant] The dedication, the cycle of training, competing, and recovering. We give you advantages, but not shortcuts. The only way is through.


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[Assistant] I'm picking him to cover, I am. They know how to play this Bears defense. You know, again, the Bears defense, it's respectable. We know they can rush the passer. Packers are one of the best pass protecting teams in all of football.


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[Assistant] You know, they have balance to run the football. Rogers to me has the greatest gauge of understanding what's going on the game out of any quarterback in football. What I mean by that is when he feels like his team's in control and they're the better team, he'll play conservative and just kill you slowly. When he feels like, Oh crap, this one's a little in doubt.


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[Assistant] Let me step on the pedal and I'll start throwing lasers around the field. He's as good as it gets from that standpoint.


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[Assistant] You know, uh, you know, there's, there's a few injury questions with the Bears football team. As much as I love the way Justin Fields look, man, he's been out for a few weeks. It's not going to be that easy, you know, coming back out in a game like this in Green Bay and think you're going to be real sharp and on top of everything.


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[Assistant] Packers defense is good. When the hell is Jair Alexander gonna come back? That's the one thing I wanna know. But, uh, I got Packers 31-16 in this one.


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[Assistant] I wish they still had two teams they gotta buy. I know we gotta hurry up, but I really do. I like the two, and I guess when it goes to eight teams in the playoffs, that's what'll happen again. But I wish we still had two.


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[Assistant] I just, I'm not like, hey, the Rams played better last week, I know that. I like that they ran the football more.


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[Assistant] I'm not sold on oh, things are fixed with the Rams just because they, they beat the Jacksonville Jaguars 37 to 17.


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[Assistant] I mean, I don't know, I gotta look real quick, but I mean, late in the second quarter, the game was still 10-7.


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[Assistant] You know, it wasn't like it was like, oh man, this is just pure dominance and they're just gonna run away with this thing.


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[Assistant] So, you know, I'm not sold in the Rams being totally fixed. I'm still a little underwhelmed, you know, by their defense. It bothers me a little bit. It does. There's lack of plays. You heard me complain about the front four today. Are they ever going to show up and dominate a football game this year? So, uh, and their Cardinals are one of those teams that just seems to every week got a good game plan.


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[Assistant] Players make plays, they just have a positive vibe and mojo of like, this is their year. I'm not saying they're gonna win the Super Bowl, but this is their year to be Kings of the NFC West and the one or two seed in the NFC. So I'm going Cardinals 24-21, Rams fight hard, make it close, but going Cardinals here.


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[Assistant] The things I know, right? I know the Titans are good. I'm not, their body of work says they won't make these mistakes that they've made the last two weeks. They had a bye week. I got too much faith in Mike Vrabel and company.


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[Assistant] The Jaguars, it's Dunskey, they know their year's over. Titan's still playing for a number one seed in the AFC. I got them winning 31-14. I could see it being a bigger blower than that. I'm going Tennessee as my first one.


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[Assistant] The Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I am. I mean, again, I just don't think it's a good matchup for the Bills. I think that's really what I look at more than anything. Damn, you're going to pick that one too. Shit. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. But I already got it. Like if the Bucks win, I don't see it being like a field goal type of football game. I don't. I mean, a three and a half point spread. And ultimately I just think


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[Assistant] The Bucs is a complete football team. The Bucs I think have been kind of coasting. This team will kind of get their attention because of the narrative around Buffalo and it is Josh Allen. 31-21.


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[Assistant] I guess I'm just, I'm a little scared to pick the Saints, but I got them winning by 11 too. It was one of the ones I started to think about it. I'm going to go with the Packers though.


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[Assistant] Again, I know what the Packers are, you know, on the road. Season's over for the Bears. Fields first game back in a while. I just think slowly but surely Green Bay will just wear their ass down and beat them. I did think about the under in the Lions Broncos game and the Seahawks Texans game.


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[Assistant] But ultimately, like I said, I think I'm going with the proven commodities here in this one.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, of course. How do you get, the Texans are playing the Seahawks, I don't totally trust the Seahawks, so yeaah, I'm taking the Titans over the Jaguars.


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[Assistant] Yo yo, what's up? Come on man, subscribe on YouTube to Chris Simms Unbuttoned Podcast. I need you, please hit the subscribe button, please!


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[Assistant] Hi, I'm Mike Tirico and thanks for watching. Make sure to hit subscribe for the latest news and highlights from NBC Sports.


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[Assistant] I've been, I've been trying to dial up a good one, like I'll lay awake at night before I fall asleep and think, but that'd be fun if I had another one that I could share in the podcast, but it just hasn't happened.


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[Assistant] Everything is fine. I'm wondering how you're doing at your house balancing the holiday festivities and responsibilities. Right. Slash pressure with, you know, still doing your job well.


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[Assistant] I think we need her on the pod sometime. We do. We do. She's been listening to the pod. Like for real. Yea. Sometime in the off season she can sit right here. Right. We can do a little bit of football. Oh. And just a lot more of this.


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[Assistant] Okay, uh, I'm excited that we're starting with Niners and Bengals. Very good game. As Peter King wrote about on Monday, kind of a snapshot of where the NFL is right now.


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[Assistant] Couple of teams hovering around 500. Yep. Couple of weeks they're good. Couple of weeks they're like, what happened to these guys? Right. And playing for, you know, for that chance to get into the postseason. Yeah. In mid-December. It's kind of happening all over the league.


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[Assistant] I think the cool part of watching the Bengals, as someone who just enjoys the league, like I don't have a favorite team at all, Bengals are a fun watch. A very fun watch. If you enjoy offensive football and kind of getting to know young players, both sides of the ball, Cincinnati's for you.


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[Assistant] Are they gonna double him or find a way to reduce this? Because clearly Aaron's dropping back and looking for him first. Yes. And it's the same thing when you watch Jimmy G and Killereg. No doubt about it.


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[Assistant] And the numbers represent that pretty well, Chris. 15 targets, 13 catches. Yeah. For that buck 51. Right. So I mean, most of the time they looked his way, he ended up with a reception. Ended up with a reception.


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[Assistant] And at this point of the game, he has double digit catches already. There's nobody close to him to even reroute him. Nobody. Look at that.


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[Assistant] This is in fact exactly what you want if you want a tight end down the middle.


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[Assistant] Let's take a look now at the other side of that matchup. The Bengals offense against the Niners defense finished in an exciting way in the fourth quarter for Cincinnati, but no touchdowns until the fourth quarter. Yeaah, no touchdowns until the fourth quarter.


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[Assistant] Boy, Chase, yeaah. This will be fun to watch. No doubt. 14 catches, 245 for those three. So, I mean, to me, that was a good storyline. Great storyline. Jamar, Chase, 5 catches, 77 yards. And you mentioned when it was 20 to 6. I think your first play for the Bengals offense, you know, picks it up. 20 to 6, they're down. Yeaah. And they face fourth down and five. And we're going to see the burrow to Chase connection.


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[Assistant] Okay, so touchdown. It was 26. Speaking of giving them a chance, let's pick it up now, late fourth quarter of the down, 20 to 13. And I think this is with Burrow connecting with Boyd.


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[Assistant] The two people that can affect that route cover, the corner and the safety, they have other things they had to worry about first.


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[Assistant] Alright, let's take a peek at what both teams have coming up before we move on to the next game. Atlantis, San Francisco. See the Niners staying on track here? I do.


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[Assistant] And a really good one in the AFC, Bengals Broncos. I mean, huge meaning to both teams for the postseason.


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[Assistant] I know you were here Sunday afternoon and when it gets to that point in this building, if you're involved with football night late Sunday, it's hard to really keep a close eye on those late kicks. I was at home, so fun challenge for all of us fans was to keep track of what was going on.


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[Assistant] Bengals and Niners and also Bills and Buccaneers. A couple of back and forth games. So let's get into what happened with Tampa Bay and Buffalo. Truly a game of a tale of two halves for both teams. Definitely. Offensively and defensively. Let's start with the Buccaneers offense and how they just kind of made it look easy in the first couple of quarters.


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[Assistant] Brady was really good in that first half. Every time he dropped back, it felt like he was doing that one little step up to climb the pocket or one little shift over. Not really that affected. Kept finding the right place to throw from and the right receiver. And I also thought he had some really nice help from Fournette too. Definitely. 100%.


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[Assistant] And sometimes teams get burned by a blitz and a disguise. Keep that in mind here as we watch Fournet. About halfway through the first quarter, still no score.


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[Assistant] First half, defensively for Buffalo, to steal one of your phrases, Strugglesville, all the way around. I mean, that was bad in the run game. I thought in the second quarter, Brady really got going, you know, every time he dropped back. Not the huge play.


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[Assistant] But completion, first down, first down. They just kept coming. And the one common theme there, clean pockets.


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[Assistant] to shuffle into and make a nice clean throw.


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[Assistant] There were a couple of throws that he makes easily 9 times out of 10.


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[Assistant] That one was a third down. I think this one. And they're on the plus 39, second down eight. And I think this is where Gronk is open. He just, just missed it. Just misses it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, God would miss. And this is when it's 24, 10, third down and seven. And it's a different pass catcher to a different route, but it's, it's very similar. It's an over the middle intermediate throw. And I think you're right to correct. It's not just a throw Tom makes nine times out of 10. It's probably closer to like 29 times out of 30 or even more.


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[Assistant] And like, like, and, and Tom's, Tom's passes don't usually do this. No they don't. Uhm, it's a, like a nose down right off his head. No doubt.


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[Assistant] In the NFC, regardless of the seeds right now, where do you put the Bucks? And obviously you've been thinking about Cardinals, Packers, Buccaneers, Cowboys. I put the Bucks as number one. I won.


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[Assistant] Second half was, was, was terrific to see what he did. I wanna, I wanna get you thought on the first half though, uh, because as incredible as it was a week ago to watch that game in the extreme wind, to watch Mac Jones handoff, handoff, handoff, and just basically never pass it all in second or third quarter, I thought it was even more startling


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[Assistant] Do you think it would have been a waste of time if, if, if, let's say that they ran one time, it was four passes in one run. No. Or three passes in one run. Even if it's just for two yards, like, I don't think that's a waste of time. I don't either.


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[Assistant] As an example of a game we already talked about, I mean, Joe Burrow finally finding a lot more success getting the ball in the end zone in the second half, in the fourth quarter in particular, I think it had something to do with, maybe a lot to do with Joe Mixon had 18 carries. Yeaah, of course. Was it getting a lot out of him? No, but it just...


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[Assistant] I think we've got one Josh Allen here. Pete corrects the Tampa Bay defensive line. Getting a lot of pressure on him and sacking him. I think this is early in the game.


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[Assistant] In the second half, do you think the buck in your defense let up a little bit because they had that big lead?


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[Assistant] You're all warmed up now and ready for the important bridge part of the show.


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[Assistant] He's 32. I was just gonna say, it feels like he still has a bunch of years left.


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[Assistant] How were you shooting threes in high school? I was good. Stefan can hit them? Oh yeaah. I was a three point shooter. Oh, that was the main part of your game? That's what I was, no doubt about it.


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[Assistant] I would enjoy talking hoops with you for the next 20 minutes to half hour. But.


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[Assistant] The Chiefs, remember when we were talking about them with a losing record and being last at the AFC West? Feels like a little while ago. Six wins in a row.


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[Assistant] How about one like, you know, perfect snapshot of the Raiders defense being a little too easy, and the Chiefs exploiting.


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[Assistant] And because the Raiders scored only nine points, how about, how about two examples of the Chiefs defense getting after it here?


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[Assistant] And I think on this same drive, uh, kind of a same kind of thing, speaking of ass whooping.


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[Assistant] Setting up, uh, there are one game up on the L.A. Chargers and the AFC West. Just so happens, it's Kansas City and L.A. coming up this weekend. Our friends at Point Spent are going to help us take a peek here. Kansas City minus three.


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[Assistant] Over-under is 52. Initially you're like, oh, these two quarterbacks have put up more than 52. I know.


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[Assistant] I'll, I'll take the Chargers and the Under. You'll take the Chargers and the Under. Which, which means it's a slam dunk that the Chiefs are going to win 45 to 30.


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[Assistant] Unless you change your mind tonight and go with the charges tomorrow with Mike. Yes, you're right. I'll let you know, I'll text you if I change my mind. Alright, over to the NFC.


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[Assistant] Quick trip through here. Cowboys win again, 27-20, uh, three game lead in the NFC East, four to go. I mean, they're doing just fine there. People who are concerned that DAC has been a little lesser than they wanted to be, what would you say?


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[Assistant] If you don't mind me asking, show us a little bit of that from their touchdown win over the football team on Sunday.


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[Assistant] More interceptions and touchdowns the last two weeks, which, I mean, for someone with his experience, that really jumps out to you. It does jump out to me.


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[Assistant] You see some quarterbacks, like I watch Roger sometimes, and he'll snap through it, and in his follow through while he's watching, he immediately starts to back up. Some quarterbacks will get through it, and then it just feels natural to go backward. It looks like he's getting to the backward part of it. Too early.


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[Assistant] And he's, he's in the position, his team is in the position where he can figure it out. They have that giant cushion in the NFCE. So the post season's coming. We'll see if he gets better before they get there. That's right.


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[Assistant] I wanna see a little bit of Micah Parsons. Oh, don't we all? His highlights haven't gotten old yet. So I mean...


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[Assistant] Quarters one through four, you kind of have a number of picks, so where are we going here to highlight how well he's playing?


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[Assistant] One more game before we get into the play of the day, Browns. And to me this, I mean, it was obviously a giant win over Baltimore. Only one game back of the Ravens now in the AFC North after they won 24-22. Offense, I mean, the points were there.


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[Assistant] We'll see if Stefanski's around to coach this weekend. Tested positive for COVID this week, right? Yea, yea, today.


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[Assistant] Two hammers here coming up here to put a close on things, put a wrap on it with the play of the day. Plays of the day. We have two of them. Yep. And who said arm strength didn't matter?


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[Assistant] You don't hear that at this desk. Let's first check in with Justin Herbert, and I can't see this play enough. It's not very often you see a quarterback throw at 65 plus in a game.


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[Assistant] And who even, I mean, aren't that many quarterbacks even going to try and throw that post at that point? No, that's like, let's go through the list. We can simplify that real quick.


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[Assistant] Yeah. Downfield again. I want to point out, 23 out of 30, 287, those are the kind of numbers he was putting up routinely in September and October before they kind of took a couple steps back.


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[Assistant] Let alone, I would argue that his first step was up there with anybody in the draft coming off the football and then the most natural bend in the draft as a pass rusher. And again, the bend, the ability to, I'm coming at you, right? Here we go. Boom. I'm coming at you. And all of a sudden go,


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[Assistant] Uh, and I just thought this was a really good all-around football player who has better pass rush ability than I expected. And he's got incredible power and strength as far as pushing offensive tackles, guards around.


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[Assistant] And then like I said, his short area explosiveness I think is really special. The guy I kind of looked at him and it was a guy from his old school. I wrote, this guy is a better version of Ryan Kerrigan to me coming out of the draft. He's a more...


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[Assistant] Georgia and what they want their defense to end to do here in a minute, okay? I mean yea, spoiler alert, right? Somebody from Georgia's coming up soon. Why don't we do it right now? I mean, I will, but I'm gonna just end with this guy. Just one more time.


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[Assistant] I just want to make sure there was nothing else I missed there because you were going to make a point. But, okay, here's your point here. 3-4 outside linebacker, no doubt, can do that.


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[Assistant] But the football player, I kept going, wow, wow, wow, you know, one after another. And then we get into that conversation a little like we talked about earlier. This is the king of quicks to power.


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[Assistant] You know, there's some bad plays in there, but again, the NFL, pass rusher, wide nine, get him out there, go get the quarterback. I think there's like, there's going to be value in the, for this guy. And he's got a chance to maybe be something one day in the NFL. He definitely popped out to me too. You haven't mentioned, uh, David Ojabo from Michigan. No, David Ojabo was a good player too. He really was. He really got hurt. Yeah.


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[Assistant] No, I'mma say this, it's gonna come off a little crazy. I got guys from New Jersey and New York City. You think we scared of anything? You think we run about guys trying to muscle us and top us out? We do that. You know, that's who we are.


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[Assistant] Are you done with your Olympic duties after that? Yes. Okay, so you did it. You made it.


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[Assistant] Did you do this- this night? Did you do it last night? Were you up last night? No, yesterday was an off day. Okay, good. I would've felt bad. I was like, damn, they made you come on the podcast after doing this? It actually worked out pretty well. I still would've been like, fuck you.


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[Assistant] Be high and work. It doesn't work for me. Dinner time. No, so as soon as my day's over. Yeah. Right. And I go, okay, whatever. Dinner time. That's when I did it. I had no family out there for a number of days. They came out. So yeah. So I was, uh, lots of daddy cigars, certainly.


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[Assistant] Like, you know, Beverly Hills, Hollywood restaurants with some friends that I like early in the week.


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[Assistant] Sitting outside of the restaurant smoking a daddy cigar, you're like, you still look over your shoulder like, wait, should I do this? But it's okay. Yeah. My California


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[Assistant] Yes, that was a higher life. Super Bowl Sunday was really cool though. To start off on the pier in Santa Monica, you know, with my best buddy, Maria Taylor, and then


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[Assistant] You know, the Bella twins and Terry Crews, Nikki Bella and Terry Crews, like movie Hollywood stars. That was cool. She even Nikki Bella let me be in one of her Tik Tok.


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[Assistant] Uh, like the Diplo challenge or whatever. Something like Diplo challenge. Right. Be careful. You don't want to blow out a hip or anything. You're 50. I did. I was worried about it. I don't know. Look at Nikki Bella's TikTok. We could look at it later. Okay.


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[Assistant] So this is, this is a thing on TikTok. I knew about it a little bit, but they were making it and I was like, okay, sure. I mean, what? You want me to just, I'm not going to say no to Nikki Bella and Terry Crews. I'm in. Let's do it.


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[Assistant] Damn no. I wish I never got to see Snoop. I never got to see Snoop. That hurt me. Yeah. You know, and especially when I saw, you know, I see the little video of him taking some puffs before the halftime show.


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[Assistant] I can name 500,000 things that were worse this year that happened that people don't get and like, don't care about, but that's what they're gonna be worried about.


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[Assistant] I mean, come on. Get the hell out of here. Uh, it was interesting. Even in the stadium in the pregame, you could smell weed around. You definitely could.


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[Assistant] I did hook up Snoop with some weed once. How so? Back in the day, right? So yeaah, I didn't intend to go down this wormhole here, but yeaah. So I was living, I had just retired. I don't picture him as a guy who needs a hookup. Well, sometimes when you leave the state of California, you gotta know some people. So this is where it went. So I was in Tennessee, I was my first year out of football.


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[Assistant] Uh, one of my good friends in Nashville was Pac-Man Jones, like best buddy, right? Lil' Chris is what we called him. So I, you know, I'm Big Chris, that's Lil' Chris. Lil' Chris is my man. He would come over, you know, on the weekends. We'd watch college football, smoke some weed, whatever. That's what we did together. Right.


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[Assistant] You know, of course, Pac-Man Jones is, he's, you know, a legend, you know, knows a lot of people in the hip-hop world, whatever, knows all those type of people. And I guess Snoop was in, in, at the time, Knoxville, Tennessee.


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[Assistant] He is who I am, but he's way into it. He is. He's a real, real fan. And of course he does great things with the youth football league there in Southern California and those kids. I mean, Snoop's a pretty freaking cool dude. You say what you want. Well, that might be the best story.


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[Assistant] When the ball was in the game, they were rolling. 13-3. 13-3, right. They had gotten to 13-10. You know, they had the ball again and were kind of moving on the drive where he gets hurt. Right? You know, convert a third and nine, I believe the play after he got hurt.


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[Assistant] You know, again, it's hard to tell, but what I would say with Odell on the field, it posed real problems for the Cincinnati Bengals football team.


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[Assistant] I think the big thing is where they got emboldened to go, wait.


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[Assistant] Now all we gotta worry about is Cooper Cup, and there's no real game breaker on the other side of the football field, so it emboldened them to play a little bit more aggressive man-to-man coverages. I think that would be the one thing that jumps out to me more than anything, right? I mean really, you go through the, I go through the second half and I go,


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[Assistant] Man, almost on all plays where the Bangos played man-to-man in the second half or post-O'dell, they won it.


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[Assistant] The zone plays, the Rams won. And that's something I think that like, looking back at the game where I go, and we'll break some of it down, where I think Lou Anarumo, defensive coordinator for the Bengals, I got a ton of respect for, great job, I would bet you that's one where he watches the film back and goes, man, I wish I would have played a little bit more man to man, especially on that last drive. Uh, because, you know, again,


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[Assistant] Where Odell is special for that offense, first off, it's hard to play man to man because he's a game breaker, just like we saw early in the game, two catches


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[Assistant] Mike Hilton is an awesome nickel corner. Awesome. He is. This is a tough spot to be in. And on this play here, what I want everybody to peep too, is the two defensive ends drop out.


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[Assistant] So there's gonna be, it's man across the board, but you're gonna have two free defense ends, kind of hovering in the middle there as you see, right around the hashes, right? And right here, the first thing, and if Matt, you could rewind it just a little bit again to go back.


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[Assistant] Is why, the first thing I would say, man to man, tough job for Hilton. But the second thing is, with the call itself and him knowing that that defense and Hendrickson and Hubbard are gonna drop out there, you don't need to play the aggressive inside fake so hard. That's where maybe Mike Hilton messes up here, either way. But, you're on an island, on a third receiver of the slot.


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[Assistant] And he's got all that room and it's Odell Beckham Jr. who runs 4-3. I don't care who you are, that's a really tough position.


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[Assistant] They called the right play. They know it's man. This play was specifically called for this coverage. We've seen them do that before this year. They did it in the 49ers game. I believe they ran the same similar play in the Cardinals game. A little bit more from a bunch set where it's different. This is a true empty trips right here.


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[Assistant] Right here, once Odell kind of gets even as he goes vertical, it's over, and he creates just enough space to where, you know, Matt Stafford can put it out there, and Odell's hands in these situations, they're as tough and as strong as any hands in the history of football, and he rips it out of the air to get the touchdown.


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[Assistant] Well, because they're a team that plays the old opposite way we talk about. They don't play the ball.


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[Assistant] So, it's a tough spot to be in, like we talked about. You're right. This is a play, and the Rams, to your point, have done this a lot. But the big thing is, I think they hit it.


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[Assistant] With a little bit of the formation use and then, like I said, Mike Hilden didn't need to go from the Odell inside fake knowing, hey, I got a guy in there that I don't have to be all over in case he runs a slant route. I'll have a little bit of a leeway because somebody would be there to protect so I can get back into play.


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[Assistant] You know, he let him get that outside release and then that was tough sledding from that point on. But it emphasizes the point again of here, when Odell, where McVeigh is special, is he more times than not dials up the play in the scheme for cups.


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[Assistant] And then, makes Odell the second guy in the read.


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[Assistant] Where, not, if it's zoned, sure, Odell's smart and he knows where to sit in the zone or run the route the right way, but if it's man and some sort of bracket coverage on cup within the scheme on the front side, then he goes, well, then Odell, our number two read, is gonna be man to man, and we like him man to man against anybody on the planet. And that was taken away from them.


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[Assistant] And now, okay, the Bengals said, whoa, we're not, we'll double Cooper Cupp and we're not so scared about the other guy and we'll get all over him. And what the Rams tried to do a little bit to turn that is they tried to put Skvarnik in Cooper Cupp's position.


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[Assistant] And make Cooper Cup Odell a little bit, which the, one of the last big catches on the last drive is really, he's kind of playing the Odell position, but I think they were thinking, like, let's let the play get Skornik open. And Cooper, you gotta get open a little bit. Uhm, and, and, you know, of course that worked out really well for Cooper Cup still.


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[Assistant] Yeah, first quarter, and it's gonna be a, they ran a, they ran the ball the play before. And they ran...


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[Assistant] A play where Stafford and the running back are going to run the same exact action as the play before. So the Bengals have just seen it fresh in their mind and here they are play again and they're seeing the quarterback and the blocking and the line and the running back all go in a direction going, wait we just saw this. So they react a little hard. What I want to tell everybody here first off is


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[Assistant] You know, this is a tough play. This is great play design. I know everybody in the world wants to jump on Eli Apple right now. I get that. And it looks like Eli Apple gets burned here.


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[Assistant] But what I would tell you is he's in a really tough situation, first off. And we can rewind it just back to the snap a little bit, Matt. You know, first off, within this run game and how this looks, they run the ball out of these sets a lot and Cooper Cup blocks down.


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[Assistant] And you can see on here, it looks like, like, pause it right there, just as he kinda comes off the line of scrimmage, looking like he's gonna block.


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[Assistant] So, it's, it's, it's, it's a safety, I don't know if this is quarters or a cover three look, I think it's a quarters really, but Bates is being aggressive because he's allowed to in quarters, but here's the problem is,


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[Assistant] Hilden is responsible, uh, for the gap in between the tight end and Cooper Cup.


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[Assistant] Eli Apple is going to be responsible for the gap outside of Cooper Cup. So he has a run effect here. See, and so he was worried about, wait, Cooper Cup, I've seen this on film. He blocks down and they run the inside zone cutback and my guy could end up the running back and coming back out to my lane. I got to be the edge setter a little bit.


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[Assistant] So they make it look like a play they run quite often, and then within that when he sees Cooper Cup release inside, oh I think he's blocking in the run game.


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[Assistant] And he sees the run action fake. Watch Eli Apple on the top right of the screen.


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[Assistant] See, he's watching RunActionBig, he knows he's got that outside gap.


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[Assistant] He's worried right now that Cooper Cup's gonna block Hilton down and there'll be nobody there for the cutback lane. Does that make sense to everybody? Right? Look at the right side. The way it looks right now, it looks like a horrendous, Henderson catches the ball and run, get, run, gets the ball off the handoff and runs right, that he's gonna have an alley cutback lane to the right, right?


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[Assistant] So Eli Apple just let the tape roll a little bit. You can see he's a little too caught up, and now he realizes, oh shit.


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[Assistant] When the Rams let up the Joe Mixon half back pass touchdown, it's the same thing. There's a corner responsible for the outside gap, so he's coming down going, well, Joe Mixon's running out here. I got to respect that. And then the guy goes inside and sneaks out behind him. Tough play, great play call by McVay, great throw by Stafford, and one other thing.


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[Assistant] Hey, can we rewind this? I want everybody to watch OBJ on the backside. See, to me, this is why OBJ is awesome. Watch OBJ realize he's covered and point


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[Assistant] To Cooper Cup to be like, hey, throw it to him, don't look at me, watch this, right now, watch it, right after this, right here, he's going to start pointing the staffer, pointing. See the left arms in the air there? He's pointing, let it go.


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[Assistant] He's pointing, like throw it to him, he's open, and then they do their little shimmy. I just wanted to give Odell some respect, uh, cause he's not the jerk people have tried to say he is.


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[Assistant] No, I would agree with that. I would agree with that. I think between, yes, the players on the field giving you some bright lights to go to that guy, the play call. We just saw this play. Wait, we've seen this play on film 700 times.


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[Assistant] And they cut it back and people get killed. I think all of that. And that's where, again, it's, it's not always about one guy. That would be, if you could literally dial up a play to go, there's a play, who can we screw over? It would be that guy you would screw over and go, I got a play for it. It was, it was a good design by McVeigh and company.


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[Assistant] First off, he's right. They got two studs in the middle. That helps them out. Here is the big thing I would tell you that happened in the run game.


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[Assistant] The Bengals changed the way they aligned on the defensive front. Let's see. Okay? And there was a lot of this. Now, the Rams are famous for their zone blocking scheme. And, you know, they want to, you know, more times than not, and I'm just going to even disconnect here so I, oh, I can't step away. I need the microphone, I forgot.


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[Assistant] More time, you know, they want to run zone scheme. And they want to run it, to explain it here, just before we show. Like, if they wanted to run the zone play to the right,


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[Assistant] They want to run 63, you know, reach the defensive tackle on the right and then kind of get up to the second level and have the center now take over the block that 63 was on and so on down the line. What the Bengals did a lot through this game is they played their defensive tackles


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[Assistant] Head up on the guards a little bit. So usually in a four down front, you have a nose, right? A shade nose who's


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[Assistant] Right on the center, on the edge of him, right, on one of his shoulders either way, and then you have a three technique. What they did in this game is sometimes they played double three technique, so you don't really have a bubble, like an uncovered lineman other than the center, that messes up with the zone schemes, or like in this play right here.


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[Assistant] Look at the left defensive tackle. Instead of being a shade nose, he's really in what we would call a two eye. He's on the inside edge of the left guard.


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[Assistant] Which, it makes it hard on the inside zone schemes. And a lot of the times, with these two beasts in the middle, they also just said, and this is not something they always do there, where they just said, you guys two-gap it.


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[Assistant] Give this type of run scheme issues. And it has in the past, but, you know, I'm sure the Rams saw this and said, wait, we haven't seen this on film all year. So, you know, they probably weren't expecting it and they really never had an answer or another scheme to go to off of this. But that would be my biggest takeaway of why the run game added to


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[Assistant] We always, we talk about linebackers shooting their gun, right? Yep. You know, where...


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[Assistant] Hey, linebacker, don't just shuffle down the line of scrimmage and stay in your gap. If you see something open, and the gap, and there's a hole, run through the gap, because I, nine times out of ten, the running backs had to be running through that hole. So the linebackers played very aggressive to shoot gaps as well, instead of just going, wait, I'm gonna shuffle sideline to sideline and stay in my gap.


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[Assistant] Because we know the Rams are masters at cutbacks or setting people up that way, and they just said nah, we'll clog up the hole.


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[Assistant] Found moderate success for it. Stay patient with it. Don't let the defense just play pass every play. You know, helps your pass rush.


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[Assistant] Big picture of the game, your defense is kicking ass, there's no point to throw and take them with any chances, strip sack, fumble, tip ball, interception, any of that. So McVade played it the right way, you know. And, you know, again, I never even, like,


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[Assistant] With the Odell, I never answered the Odell, what they, like, I think everything we just talked about. Yep. Less than three yards per carry. Less than two. Two turnovers, right, less than two. Two turnovers, right. Third, you know.


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[Assistant] Tight end gets hurt, we're on a third string tight end. Odell gets hurt, we're on a bunch of guys we don't know at receiver. I mean, we can't run the ball. You know, all those, again, to me a lot of this is the Odell effect too.


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[Assistant] It really is. This is a team that's predicated on stars. They're not deep. They're predicated on their big guys being big in these type of games. It changed the game completely. I am one to sit here that the stat lines that we just said, I think, prove that the Rams are no question in my mind we're the better team on the field. There's no question. And then I also go,


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[Assistant] And I don't want to sound like a bangle hater because I respect them, but I do think of Odell State in the game, it was going to pose problems for the Bengals. I don't see them slowing them down too much in the football game if he stays on the field. I really think in my heart of hearts, and again, I know I'm not right about everything, I go Rams win by 10.


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[Assistant] If Odell plays in the game. I really feel that way. Maybe 14. Yeaah. I mean it was 13-3. I no doubt about it. You know, so, that's just my thoughts. I don't know if that's right. That's just, you know, a projection. Uh, but certainly,


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[Assistant] Was a way more dangerous offense and posed a lot more problems to the Bengals when OBJ was in the game.


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[Assistant] I would agree. You know, Mixon had a smattering of runs and the toss, right? But you're right, it may be not as many game-changing plays where...


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[Assistant] 35 yard gain or whatever it was. So you got that. Then they hit the play action to Henderson where, you know, they tried to basically,


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[Assistant] That the Rams won in man to man coverage. You know, you got Logan Wilson matched up against Henderson. Henderson did a good job and Stafford threw him a great ball. But, uh, I think those points are real. There's no doubt. And Henderson's, you know, Henderson, the acres, eight yard run at the very end of the game to get them down to like the eight yard line. Those are some big plays in the game by the Rams running backs.


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[Assistant] I don't think Cup should have been the MVP, I'll say that. I've said that already. Aaron Donald should have been the MVP. My second vote would have gone to Matthew Stafford over Cooper Cup. I'm sorry, Cooper, Matthew Stafford's


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[Assistant] You know, something I talked about on the pre-game show. First off, if you saw the human of Cooper Cup, you'd go, oh,


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[Assistant] Maria, to everybody, one of the first things everybody said is, I didn't realize Coupar Cup was that big. Yeah. Right? So, he's big.


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[Assistant] He's incredibly quick, he's got all the jitterbug that Edelman or Wes Welker has, except he's a much bigger human being, and then he has more vertical speed.


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[Assistant] Right? You know, he's not like a blazer to where you go, oh my gosh, I'm shaking in my boots, but plenty of speed to where you go, you play him man to man or bump too many times, he can run by you and make some plays. Now, where I think again, the Bangles messed up, is...


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[Assistant] They didn't play man to man as much. I would have said, let me see Cooper Cup try to run by me for a 60 yard go route or something. You know, or I'm going to double Cooper Cup and let me see Skornik or somebody else beat us to win the game. And when they did that, it was successful for the most part. But at the end of the game, they got it a little into we're up by four.


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[Assistant] You know, it's tough. I don't blame anybody because it's tough. You go, I don't want to play man to man and the guy trips and falls or, you know, they throw our guy to the ground like T Higgins did to Jalen Ramsey and we get a touchdown and all of a sudden we're losing just because I played man to man. That's where it's tough, I know.


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[Assistant] I'm, I'm more like probably like you. I'm going, yeah, but it worked every time we called it the second half, right? So let's just go down with it.


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[Assistant] So, you know, they got Skornik and Van Jefferson to the left. And just pause it right here, Matt, just for a second. They ran this play earlier.


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[Assistant] In the third quarter, where number 88, that's Hopkins, right? I mean, I'm not even ready for his damn name because he's the third string tight end. Hopkins basically gonna run like six yards and turn around and then they run


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[Assistant] Stafford hit Hopkins and you might even remember Hopkins like bobbled the ball and then like ran like a crab through like a bunch of people covering the ball with two hands. So they run it already and Hopkins got the ball. So here they come back to it and Matthew Stafford makes this play.


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[Assistant] I want you to watch Von Bell, number 24 in the middle of your screen, because Stafford is gonna stare down 88 Hopkins and make Von Bell move just enough


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[Assistant] To where he could throw the unbelievable no look throw. Look at his eyes. He's staring at 88. Stafford's been doing no look throws for a long time. He just hasn't been on a team for everybody to go, wow, this guy can throw no look throws. He's been doing it since Mahomes did it.


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[Assistant] He has. He's done it more times than Mahomes has done it, and at a higher success rate. But see here, look what he got Von Bell to do. He got Von Bell to take about three steps to 88 Hopkins, and now here goes the throw, no look, look at Von Bell, and he misses the ball by inches.


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[Assistant] You know, again, I know this is, hey, this, this, I'm not saying this is bad by Cooper Cup, but I'm more amazed by the throw than the guy that just caught the ball that was put into his two hands. Unbelievable throw. I mean, that's where it's, again, Stafford's not getting enough respect for his performance in this game.


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[Assistant] Pressure in his face. Rewind that again. So here, let's just go back to this play. Again, zone coverage is the point here for both of these plays. Now we have Cooper Cup on Logan Wilson. You know, to our, to, to our man's question with Charles Jamis, 14.


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[Assistant] Right? Isn't that, are there plays when Stafford just decides to throw to Cooper Cup, right? Yes, when he sees a linebacker covering the, one of the best receivers of football, he's gonna sit there and wait on it. So they play zone again.


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[Assistant] Here we go. Boom. Jam it in. Right. Good throw. Nice catch. Still, you know, they knew that rat was coming to a degree, but they gotta respect something. So there you got two zone plays in a row of going bam and bam and they got down the field and here we are in position now to score.


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[Assistant] As good as it gets, it's a special arm, it's one of the greatest arms in the history of football, it's one of the greatest throwers in the history of football, and that was an unbelievable gutsy move, clutch, whatever you want to say. Filthy. Brains to go, wait I'm going to look this much


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[Assistant] I don't think he's going to get that completion. You know, as we saw, it was very close even with the look off, the no look pass. So, you know, it's, hey, that's another one where you go, oh, Von Bell, but you want to go, well damn, I mean, I don't know, the other guy's good too. It's not, I'm not mad at Von Bell. I'm not.


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[Assistant] You know? Yea, they're probably, he's probably, Von Bellow will probably watch this at some point and go, man, I mean, I knew Cooper Cup was over there. They were gonna go at him. I wish I would have just...


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[Assistant] Take away the middle, but he sees the eyes and again to your point before with the run play and then the bootleg for the touchdown. Yeah, he saw the player earlier. So he's going wait. I saw this and they threw it to that guy and then okay He's looking right at him. So I'm not gonna let him throw to that guy What zoom went by you and that's just it all day long. Hey, that's hot


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[Assistant] They're worried about the run game. You know, they're worried. We talked about McVeigh runs the ball. He doesn't give a shit. Even if you got, you know, so they're worried about that. You know, he's not afraid to just jam it in there. Tell cam makers, just put your head down and jam it in there. So, you know, they're playing that to stop the run at the one full. They gotta play, stop the touchdown and they're going to play.


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[Assistant] Let's hope our studies and our corners who are good


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[Assistant] Can just win some battles out here and just let them not have, you know, hopefully we can contest the throw and they don't, they don't make it happen. But the problem is, you know, it's Stafford who's a really high level thrower and Cooper Cup who's amazing as well. We know. And what I think too,


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[Assistant] Is like on the first touchdown to Odell where, like you said, we've seen that route so many, but I don't think they ran that route out of that look, right? It's usually like more of a bunched look. I would bet you on this last touchdown play,


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[Assistant] You know, there's been offences I go where we have the slant and the fade called, and we had a signal. Like, if he's playing the inside, Joey Gallame grab his face mask, and that meant now he's running the fade. Right? He's playing me inside, I'm giving you the old face mask grab, that means run fade. I don't know if it's that.


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[Assistant] Or I don't know if it was something they saw through their game planning and their own preparation going, we run slant all the time. Let's change it up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fake the slant, but you're right. They're playing the slant right before the snap, he takes a step inside.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To take that away, Cooper Cup does a good job of being patient and selling it a little bit and you let it go and that's that. You know, but there it is. And really, as I heard after the game, this is Odell's spot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right. This is supposed to be Odell. Cooper Cup should be on in the inside. Running the slant. And I bet you more times than not, like I said, the numbers show him running that. But yea, if you can go all the way back to the start here as much as you can. You know, yea, we just missed the point of where Eli take that step.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, inside to cut him off. He'd probably just taken it, but he is inside to Paul's point. And, you know, hey good thing, this is a run pass option. This is a run play call. Really? Yea, this is a run play call. They're running inside zone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With, if they don't have, I'm guessing, three over two on the receivers on the outside. If they had another DB, like doubling them, or a safety over the top, I bet you he runs the ball. But if we get two on two, then we throw it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And good thing he did throw it, because if you go back one more time, Matty, Matt Casey running the controls today, watch 57 Pratt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He busts through, shoots his gun on the left side here, you're gonna see. Watch, he busts through. He's gonna tackle Darrell Henderson for a no-gain. He's right over the tight end. See him shoot through? There he is, he almost touches Stafford as he throws the ball.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, but yes, that was a called run play with those two guys running, they're running their normal zone blocking scheme.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know everybody's gonna look at it and go, well yea, the refs, hey, I don't like this either. You know, don't call anything all game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pass interference left and right all season long, but we get in these type of games and everybody swallows their whistle. And I got, I, I do, I do not like that aspect that is called so differently from the regular season as compared to the Super Bowl.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They would do that all regular season. I wish that they just did that. I'd be like, fine, this is fine. Robin is racing football. Cool. It is a drastic change.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can tell you as an innocent bystander that the Rams got the short end of the stick with the calls and non-calls in this game more than anybody. We can go back and tally them up but we want to do a Twitter live session and we can watch the game live once more time and I can tell you that there's more penalties by the Bengals not called than the Rams, okay? So stop


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, the social media bullshit of we're all gonna jump into this perception. So here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Final drive, final drive inside the twenties. Here's, here's, this is, we're not even at Wilson yet. This is not even Wilson. This is the first in eight. Alright, first in eight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On, on, on one of the first plays after they, Cam Akers got them down here with the grid run play. Alright, so here's one of the first down. This is pass interference holding on Cooper Cup. They don't call it. Alright?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, it's, it's holding, as you can see right there. He's coming out of the break, and the guy has two hands locked on him, he can't separate. Alright? So there's, there's one play, where I go, nothing was called. Alright? Let's go to the next one, Matthew Casey. So there's that play.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the same play. He threw the ball to Darrell Henderson here, right? He looked at cup one. Cup was being held. He comes down to Darrell Henderson. He throws it to Darrell Henderson on his feet. I mean, it's blatant holding.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's Blayden. He's, ehm, we could show it like a real video and get close. He's holding, he's almost got him horse-collared. He has his hands inside the framework of the shoulder pad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that should have been past interference right there because this ball gets thrown, the ball's in the process of being thrown to him right here. So we have holding on Coober Cub, Darrell Henderson, first and eight, not called. Okay. So now let's go to the next play. Here's the next play.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, sorry. So this is the Henderson play still. The first punt of Cooper Cup was the first and eight. Henderson's second and eight. You saw that. This is also the Henderson play. And so everybody knows because they're doubling Cooper Cup here. And again, another example of man, they had a hard time getting open. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is, this doesn't even do it justice. He was held twice on this play. These are still shots. Eli Apple held him first, and then after he broke away from Eli Apple, Von Bell holds him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, so there, we've showed two plays in a row now where there's three holdings, nothing's called in the Bengals. So stop with like the Bengals got screwed over. And we also got the T Higgins offensive pass interference for a 75 yard touchdown. Stop. So stop. Now, let's get to this play. The Logan Wilson play. Listen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not the most egregious in the world, I understand. It's more egregious than everybody's gonna get credit for. First off, this play is specifically designed for this coverage. They know, once again at zone, they're going, wait, it's our best receiver in football, one on one with Logan Wilson. See, where I think everybody's wrong, first off, is they're looking at this aspect of it. They're going, wait, that's not passive. This is the penalty, right here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is Logan Wilson, he's 245 pounds. He's in this position. First off, if he's this quick to be in this position and get back and cover Cooper Cup, then we now need to start paying Logan Wilson 15 million dollars a year, because he can cover slot receivers without doing it. He has his hand that's sticky, let alone, alright, because it's a glove in the NFL, on a chest.