Bears Shock Packers in Wild Card Immediate Post Game Reaction

 It's missing the point. It's the immediate, quite soon after, I feel like I actually took it down a notch there. It's immediate. It's the immediate aftermath show of the Bears somehow. Did they? Am I dreaming? Did I dream my entire day? Then did I dream watching that game? And am I dreaming, recording this podcast? Is this all a simulation? It's starting to seem like it, it's missing the point. I am DK Sizzle. Some call me Dave Clarke. Some call me beside myself. I'm here with Leah Dolby formally. She's now Leah Clark, my current wife Steelers fan, often mentioned on the show. Um, I, I needed an immediate post-game reaction to that 31 27 win. Chicago Bears over Green Bay Packers in the, in the second game of the wild card round on Saturday night. Currently it's nine 13 in Los Angeles, but unfortunately that means it's, uh, midnight, 13 on the East Coast. So all the boys. For, you know, for, for better or for worse, or, or af post 35 so you're not getting them on a, on a post game reaction show. So here I am with my wife, everybody. Me, my wife, Leah. Um, she's been with me through thick and thin on this bear season. Thankfully we're, we're fans of Teams O off conference. Yeah. Um. I really appreciate you coming on the show. 'cause I really just had to sort of emotionally process this if, even if it is a short reaction show or a long show, and by the end we're like doing our last will and testament. Uh, from your perspective, I mean, you haven't been on the show before Leah, but from your perspective, let's talk about this game in isolation and then maybe we'll go on to talk about the Bears season as a whole. And, uh, I don't know, maybe your holistic view of the torture that you've seen your husband go through across the course of the entire. Bears fandom you've witnessed. Um, but this game as a whole, let's start at halftime. What do you say? At halftime, the Packers were dominating the bears. They were up 21 3. Uh, the household was despondent. Um, our little nephew had come here to watch the game. I, I had to try to keep his spirits up, had to try to keep his spirits up, but, uh, the child inside me was dying. Uh, I haven't asked you this question yet. How confident were you considering you've seen a lot of bears over the last few years? And then a lot of bears this season. How confident were you that we could actually come back? I was pretty confident. I know better than to say that out loud. Oh yeah. Because thank God, spoiler alert, done that before. It's not a spoiler. I did mention that you, uh, that you fully jinxed them during the Bengals game, but, but I will say I They still won. Yes. Thank God for our marriage. They still won. I, there was a point as we started coming back where I actually wasn't speaking words, which, uh, anyone that knows me or anyone that listens to this podcast knows that's pretty rare. But I actually wasn't speaking words. I was sort of mouthing words to you and you were just like, Uhhuh, it's it gonna be okay? It's gonna be okay. We were like, sort of in the trenches. But anyway, sorry. Back to the question. What, uh, how confident, how confident were you in and why it's Caleb Williams? Oh my God, don't do this to me. Ice span's done it. We've seen it happen enough times this year that I was confident that he could do it again now. There were still points of worry. I was confident he was it, was it offense? Was it the 18 points where you were down? Was it the 18 points of worry? It wasn't, it wasn't how much you were down. It was, I wasn't confident that your defense could stop them. Ah, your defense because they couldn't up and stop looked the shambles. Yeah. They, they couldn't at that point. Uh, there was one point when they forced the fumble. Yeah. The ball was loose. Yeah. And I think it was. Dexter S Senior goes to jump Dexter. Yeah. He completely missed the fumble recovery. Yeah. But like propels it out of bounds, like just fall on top of the ball. That has to be a basic drill that you're doing all the time. Yeah. Like this team forces, turnovers, forces loose balls. That has to be something you're prepared for. Yeah. And in a game like this, you have to be prepared to capitalize on those moments. Yeah. I mean, that was. Gearing up to be the sort of storyline of the game, which is really weird, right? Where it was like every game the Bears have won. We, we get at least one of those turnovers that we had the opportunity to get. Right. You know, there was, there was the, the moment where the, I think it was like their left tackle caught a pass. They were trying to get cute back at us. He fumbled, and I think that's the Dexter doesn't fall on the on the play moment. Right? I mean, guys, this is very fresh, you know, like I have a lot of emotions swimming around my head, so please forgive me if I like mess up any of the facts of this game. This is very immediate post-match. But, um, but there was also a couple of, it was a lot of, a lot more like not recovering fumbles than it was like not picking the ball off, right? Yes. Like if the, if the opportunities had have been interception opportunities, I feel like we do capitalize on those more. There were one or two. But I also think an interceptions harder than a fumble recovery. Oh. Not for this Bears team, like statistically especially, but, but it was cold, soft. It was cold. You're gonna, you're fumbles are gonna be what you need to capitalize on in a game like this. 'cause it was freezing. There was a little ice storm before the game. Oh. And there was that one on the, um, kickoff. Yeah. But they didn't recover. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it just seemed, when that stuff starts to happen, as, you know, like as a, as a Steelers fan. The Steelers are, have been based for years on turning the ball over, you know? And I, I mean, I would say yeah, hugely a defense based franchise. Right. But, but last season you were more of a turnover. I, I think reliant defense. I think that, yes, we, you've maybe shored up a little bit, which is a little easier to watch. Like turnovers are great, but when you rely on them, like this Bears team has, like, you're, you're waiting every play for like a big moment. Well, they're exciting. They are exciting, but there's, it's also it becomes very stressful when you need 'em. Yes. You know, to, to be asking to be needing a turnover is a, because it can not happen need just as easily as it can happen. Right. You just need to be a good defense. You need to be better at your job. Yeah. Which is stopping, stopping yards and like the, they do get cut up. They do get cut up a lot. We did stuff the run though, like we, we came out because what I think. I mean, I, I, I hesitate to transfer entirely to the comeback yet because I do wanna focus more on like what we failed to do at first and what we consistently failed to do across for the first two quarters a lot of the time. Right? Yeah. So I, I think what happened today was what happened a lot of the time, but because it was the playoffs and because it was the Packers, the pressure really mounted on me in like a spiritual way because I, I, I really thought I convinced myself, and I guess I was wrong again. But I convinced myself that like we had to start hot for the first time really properly in the Packers matchup. And if for the season, for the most part, I would suggest you don't need to start hot or cold. Just like let's go for a lukewarm startback. Yeah, just stop being bad. Let's be within seven points going into the second half. Yeah. I mean, no monumental historic franchise comebacks necessary. We've had seven of them this year. It's insane. It's the most in a calendar year of any team ever. Well, and this was the biggest comeback in franchise history for a playoff game. 18 points. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I don't mean to downplay my team and, and I love those guys and I love everything they've done, but I, I don't, that's good. That can stay that way. They can stay that way forever. I'm happy to be a front runner because that was tough. That was, that was a really tough watch. Halftime was tough. It was pretty existentially devastating. And I immediately started going to the bank for house money. Right. Like immediately I started to, 'cause that's what I was, I was doing to myself all week. I was like, if we don't get it done, if we don't make this happen, how am I gonna view this season? And that's the, but that's the attitude of a, of a fan, of a team that's been outta the playoffs for five years, hasn't won a playoff game in, in, in a decade, yes. But would 15 years. I would like to point out that at the start of the season. You had no expectations for this team. Yeah. You did not want to buy in. Did not want to let them get you excited. Despite Ben Johnson. Despite Caleb Williams' second season and being pretty positive about him, despite Colston Loveland, you did not have a. High set of expectations. It's not necessarily that I had didn't have a high set of expectations. It's that I felt silly watching hard knocks last season and by, and 'cause I, you know me better than anybody and you know that like, I'll fucking snort a narrative of my nose if presented to me like I will. Roll up a hundred dollars bill of metaphors and snort a narrative directly into my brain. Like if it's offered to me, especially if it's about my team, if it's about the Chicago Bears, right? Mm-hmm. Um, you've wa you watch other sports, I mean, we're, we're co fans of, of a couple of teams and like, and, and a lot of times those narratives pay off. The problem is, I had to tell myself this off season that this Bears team is different. This franchise is a different kind of franchise that I support to other franchises that I, that I am a fan of. Right. And I, it might just be a franchise that can't get its shit together because year in, year out, it just didn't seem to be the case. And especially when we started consistently having high draft picks for, you know, supposedly franchise QBs. I don't think you can really blame me for thinking that after Justin Fields, you know, to just be wary. I never said he's a bust. I never said anything like that. I've been defending Caleb Williams since the jump, but I had to temper expectations for myself because it was, it was just hurting too much. Talk to me about Justin Fields, though. I know, I know you guys should have kept him because I think he might be okay. Better situation than New York. Everybody's better when they don't play for the Jets. I'm better, I'm a better quarterback right now than if I would be if I was playing for the New York Jets. You know, like, that's just the facts. Um, how about Harbaugh getting fired, huh? Yeah, I mean, I think whoever lost that. Yeah. Lose lose towns smash. Yeah. Yeah. Lose lose town. Um, I developed a, a take today in my head, in my little brainy, uh, that since we're on the show, a fresh take. Yeah. A fresh take. Just as a quick aside. I decided that the best team that John Harbaugh could go to is the New York Giants. Interesting. I think that the, I think that the, like crazy running back, the really athletic quarterback, uh, Malik neighbors when he comes back from his injury, I think there, there's roster talent there and I think they're missing, like, I mean a lot of people are missing a har, you know, I mean, as much as he was your rival, like he, you know, he's a great coach. Absolutely. That's why he got seven calls when he got fired, and, and there was only six teams with, with head coaching vacancies. Step forward to playing a Harbaugh team. No, of course not. Of course not. They have so much respect for him. Time's undefeated. And I think that's what we were sort of saying about both Tomlin and Harbaugh is like times undefeated. Like eventually it's, the marriage is gonna erode, not ours of course, but eventually the marriage is gonna erode. Right? But anyway, um, back to the, to the, to the point at him, my team, we'll talk about your team next week. Oh, we have an actually ongoing, uh, argument about this next week because what, when does a week start? What? So it's next week. It was this game week. Yeah, we, we've settled on that this game week. We'll, uh, when this game week concludes on Monday. Uh, and the Texans play the Steelers. We'll talk about that. You know what, I think we should preview that game at the end of this podcast. Um, that being said, obviously they start to show signs of life. Um, it's 21 6 with three minutes and 11 seconds left in the third quarter, the. Packers score a touchdown. They go up 27, no, sorry. We score a touchdown and convert the two points to make it. Ugh, I'm messing up. Math is hard. Math is not math thing. Eventually it was 2116. They missed an extra point at some point, right? No, it was 2116 they scored. Yeah, that's right. It was 2116. They scored. I thought it was over at that point in the fourth quarter, they missed the extra point. Right. We score, we convert the two points to make a 24 27 because they had only scored a touchdown with no extra point. We're within a field goal. Then I'm bagging the football gods as Caleb marches down the field. It's, uh, on the right side of the two minute warning with one time out, and we run the ball to, to round it out. Right. I'm begging the foot football to round it out across the two minute warning. I'm begging the football gods for us to just use every minute. Yeah. At this point, my dad's here and he's come to pick up our nephew to drive him home because obviously I'm drinking heavily and I shouldn't be driving children anywhere, a different one. I have to have some try. January. January's going great. It's going fucking great. Thanks a lot Caleb. Um. I'm just begging them to use the whole clock, right? I'm begging them to use the whole clock because they give the bo, I mean, well, let's not skip ahead. Caleb drives down like with the biggest nut sack I've ever seen, to the point where like he maybe needs to see a doctor. He's gotta look on his face. I, I think there's something about the, he's gotta look on his face moment that actually pays off when a quarterback does it. I've only seen it happen a few times, like in the history of the postseason, where a quarterback just goes, nah. Like now I'm winning. I'm winning. DJ Moore drops the ball. I love the call to make him the primary On the, on the scoring play. After Deandre Swift makes a great play, uh, a little skinny post, which is not even really a running back route. He runs a little skinny post over the sidelines. He gets. What, 15, 20 extra yards. You remember this point? Yep, I do. And then I'm like, holy shit, we're in scoring distance. The, the clock has stopped. I kind of just, and Ben Johnson, I, to his credit, I don't know if this is Ben or Caleb or just in agreement between the both of 'em, but they were like, we're fucking scoring. This is what we're gonna do. The clock. Can go fuck itself. And, but I was the one being a little bitch about it. I think that, yeah. 'cause you can't start getting cute with the clock. I mean, he got cute a few times with a few different things, but I, I have to agree. You can't stop getting cute with the clock. You can't st you can't start getting, start getting cute with the clock constantly. Be cute. The take the clock out for smoothies, take the clock out for ruper floats, you know, dress up as, uh, 1950s, uh, what do they call 'em? Uh, sock hoppers, you know, just the cutest, the cute Take the take the clock out on the cutest date you can possibly imagine, and just let it fucking take down, because that defensive stand with how that defense looked for the entirety of the game was horrifying to go through. I want the offensive to have the ball, and it's the Chicago Bears. When's that ever happened? Yeah. So talk me through, like, just from your perspective, what you were seeing. At that point from before, uh, the Swift play all the way through the DJ Moore play and like, what, what you were thinking about when we actually just scored and, and maybe gave him the ball back with too much time. I mean, my first thought was That's too much time on the clock. Yeah, mine too. And it was, it was because it was. They did then take the ball down the field. I, we led him a little bit though, right? Like we, we sort of clock managed on the defensive side pretty well. I, I wonder if we watched that tomorrow with like no emotional investment that we see that we put them in an almost impossible scoring situation with like 13 seconds left on the clock. The defense did their job for sure. Yes, yes. The defense did their job. What? You sound so reticent to it. To you, you're still very critical because they had a terrible game. Well, the defense also let them drive down the field. There was that, there was that, there was a couple of to get yeah, to field goal position. They missed the field goal. Well, that before you mean. Yeah, I'm talking about the last play. I know, but I'm saying like, overall I get it. No, I get it. I don't think the defense did their job overall. No, I agree. I agree. I, I think the defense still has to get better. I really enjoyed Caleb post game being like, I have to get better. I think that's leadership right there. Um, I'm not ready to talk about his like whole post game attitude yet. I wanna still talk about this sort of xs and os of what happened. But on that note, I wonder. What your take is on this team overall, like this is how the bears seem to win football game. And at this point it's not pretty, but also it is at moments. It's kind of beautiful though. It might not be pretty, but I think it might be beautiful. It might be it. I'm, it might, it might be a painting I don't even quite understand yet. Well, Jackson Poll in there. I need someone smarter than me to explain this painting. You know, I need someone that works at the Getty, Senator, explain me this, explain me this painting as soon as possible. Yeah. I don't know. I have really mixed feelings about this team. 'cause like I. Obviously watch this team more than any other, other than my own team. So I have seen every single game this season, last season. That's a hundred percent. You are, you are a lovely, committed wife. You're like Agnes Shakespeare. You're, you're really a ride or die for watching the uh, for watching the Bears with me. I do. I think I do repay it. Even though Aaron Rogers is your fucking quarterback, which we should probably talk about at some point. We exercise this. Yeah, that he was abandoning me on Monday. I don't have to go to work. I don't know what to tell you. I scheduled this job just so I didn't have to watch Aaron Rodgers succeed in the playoffs. I do kind of think you guys are gonna win against the Texans too. That's the worst part, but we'll talk about that in a second. Um, I think that your defense has gone worse as the season has different fest. Um, and I love a good defense. I had a lot of fun watching them at the beginning of the season. I. What is it? I know you guys have suffered a lot of injuries, but like as your players have coming back, come back in, they haven't looked the same. I don't know if they're getting brushed back in a little bit. So I mean, if, to get into the sort of nitty gritty of it, if I was really doing like a thesis statement on what happened to the Bears passing defense over the course of the season, um, I think that what emerged on the tape is that. Vertically we're really hard to beat and we make plays on the ball, but if you hit us horizontally, laterally mm-hmm. You can really cut us up. And I think that's, I think that when there's real flaws in a defense professional, NFL analysts, defensive coordinators, paid tape watchers are gonna see that. Guys like Nashawn Wright and CJ Gardner Johnson with. Being sort of two examples of the same problem, right? Which is it's, there's a reason why Nha Wright got cut off the Vikings practice squad. Now, were they wrong about him? Did he make gr great plays at the start of the season? Yes. But what happened was, like, I don't think they cut him knowing all of his qualities. I, I think that there's a, uh, a lot of potential for him to be on the field as a special teams guy and also as a. Specific third down coverage guy, you know, but there's a lot of cap issues with resigning him. So whatever. Um, CJ Gardner Johnson came in at a great time, had worked with Dennis Allen and I, they both were two, you know, he's a veteran, uh, ni Shawne. Wrights a, a younger player. What ended up happening, they're both just getting absolutely sliced up and underneath. Slant routes, like they couldn't keep up with guys. And then LaFleur was really exploiting that. Uh, we, we made some adjustments. I, I do think we made some proper adjustments and Kyler Gordon coming back was good. They spent then an extended time intentionally torturing Kyler Gordon, right? Yeah. So he came back. Yeah, first came back and he was snap in the first half. But what I thought was really crazy was that like he, he worked himself back into the game like he did. I, I, I think he was one of the most important. Defensive contributors tonight, and I think he was played perfectly because he played more and more and more snaps as the game went on. And by the time the most crucial snaps of the season were happening. Kyle Gordon was on the field making plays on the ball, keeping up with his receiver. He was at the scene of the crime for the last few plays In a good way. Yeah, and I think they did a really good job of letting our most talented lateral mover, our best. Playmaking Athlete on defense, who has as the best playmaking defensive team in the NFL, statistically, our best playmaking athlete on defense, fucking Spider-Man, not on the field for the majority of the season, and came out and, yeah, he looked a little slow coming back from injury, but there was a couple times where he, he got beat, but I still saw him like just trying to, it wasn't like a, oh, he's lost a step. Type deal. It was like he's trying to work himself back up, but he's not quite at the speed of the game, you know? And I think you noticed that too. And I think he just started to, to stay with his man by the end of it. And they, they weren't, they weren't able to exploit him by the end. That distance was cut down a significant Yeah. And I think that like trying to go at him is a bad idea. And I think that is what kind of messed up the Packer's offensive rhythm. 'cause they were cutting us up before that. Yeah. They should have stayed away from that. They've done the same thing, but they, they went after him and it worked and then they kept going after him and they weren't able to adjust after it. They worked, they worked him into the game. They kind of did. They kind of were, they kind of helped disrupt that. I mean, that being said, we had some really unfortunate injuries tonight. Um, billings. Yeah. Trappe, uh, Edmonds. I mean, Edwards, I can never, it was, uh, Edwards. Yeah. Edwards, I mean, who's the emotional leader of the team? It looked like a bad, it looked like a, like a foot ankle like fracture. Like the, the, the foot went around too much was about Caleb's ankle. Yeah, but I mean. He's a fucking dog. That's the difference. Like I actually no joke. When I saw him getting up in limp, I was like, that's going to make him better. I really thought that. I was like, he's gonna get better. He's gonna be like angry that he's hurt. Iceman is the best, it is the most accurate nickname I think I've seen for a player since maybe the boss. Uh, it's really hard because like Drake May's nickname is. Drake Maye, like the, have you seen this meme? No, the meme is Drake. Oh, they're a meme. Yeah. It's okay. I'm more chronically online than you. We, we accept that the New York Times didn't publish it. I get that. But his name is Drake. Drake Maye May. And the sort of, just to quickly explain the joke, because that's what always makes jokes funnier. Uh, it's because he's like a pretty straight up and down white guy, which I kind of find funny. And he seems like a pretty nice guy. I've, I've been on the side of like, Drake, Maye and the Patriots on the podcast for the year. I really wish he was more unlikable. Yeah, he's really likable. I, you know, I mean, even as a Steelers fan, you're, you really want to hate the Patriots, right? But he's a likable quarterback. I mean, I can always hate the Patriots, dude. I, how many Patriots fans do I know? And how many do you know by proxy? Because of me, because of where I grew up. Too many. Too many. Yeah. Yeah. Well, one is too many, but the, but we know a lot. I'm talking to them. One's a fan. Two's too many. Yeah, three's a, three's a crowd And four is a fucking, uh, southy bar, right where they're kicking you in the ribs for liking the wrong team. Um, it is, it's like four people in a southy bar, like two 30 in the afternoon. That's like, that's the exact amount of people that are gonna beat the shit outta you in the afternoons. But this is Southie before it got gentrified apparently. I don't know if someone told me that. I don't live there anymore, but, um, what was my point? I've lost it. I've lost the thread completely. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Me and Patriots fans, all my Patriots fans in my life are talking to each other, like we're watching sports in Mr. Rogers neighborhood right now. We're both just so happy. You know, like I talked to the guys on the show and we're just like all so happy to just be in a great place with our teams and like our quarterbacks are doing well, and it's like, Hey man. I glad you're feeling good. You know, because like, the world's tough as well, so I had a lot, I had a lot of emotional support. Texters tonight. It was really good. Uh, a lot of, a lot of love, a lot of people around the whole fan was watching because, you know, they know that I've s slugged through watching this team through so many shitty games. And you've been right there with me. So like, I really appreciate, I wanna share this, uh, this one victory with you. But, um, that's gonna be my great transition into Caleb Williams is sort of post-game aura. Uh. Like job's not finished. Job finished. Job not finished. I mean, I don't see, they were trying to ask him in the post game interview leading questions. Yeah. About like, can you take a deep sigh of relief? And I was like, no, I like this moment. No. Yeah. This is just the first game. There's a lot more ahead of us. Also. We gotta be better. Yeah. You know, like we gotta play way better. Yeah. What you wouldn't be true. It is, of course it is. Like we can't make it so difficult on ourselves. But I do think you, you have to remember, I know they lost Micah Parsons and that immediately made them, not everyone in any way, this player. Exactly. And I know this made them immediately not a contender. And like they get a free pass. 'cause that's how the media treats the packers. And also, by the way, I'm gonna call that the refs, but the refs. Yeah, it's, they just like, the playing the Packers is like, you're, you're, you're, there was one moment or three-fourths back at all times, you know what I mean? Caleb had thrown the ball and it was like a second lin and then he gets shoved over. Oh, yeah, yeah. There was a couple of ladies. Nothing. Honestly, nothing. You touch Mahomes like that. Well, it's gonna, that'll start once he like proves it. But I also think that like for the kind of game. That it was, I actually thought it was gonna be way trippier. It was more of a contest of skill by, by the end than anything else. Yeah. And I also think we sort of punked them by the end. Like I feel like Jordan Love and Caleb Williams both had the opportunity to win the game for their team. And I feel like Caleb Williams had a much harder set of circumstances and one of the two guys won the game for his team. And I've been sort of banging this drum about Jordan Love, but if we have you, well thank you, but. The media, the, the postgame, the, the narrative was gonna be Jordan Love versus Caleb Williams. Of course, if Jordan loved won, of course, if Jordan loved won, but when do we start to get to say, there you go, there's your answer. Well, Caleb Williams has played Jordan Love four times. He's three in one against him, and one of those three. A is the third time the Bears and the Packers have ever met in the playoffs in the history of the National Football League. And these are the two oldest franchisees, two of the oldest franchises. So to me, I think Caleb absolutely. It was probably heartbroken after the game because no father wants to do that to their son and I appreciate that the Packers have the built-in excuse that like their starter, Malik Willis wasn't playing and they had to play backup QB Jordan Love like that sucks. I get that. Yeah. If Malik Willis, their obvious starter was playing. Maybe they, maybe, maybe that game is different. You know what I mean? I know. That's the narrative of this bear team. We keep beating backups. Another backup beating Jordan. Love Jordan. Love another backup beating. You know, we gotta start beating, starting QBs out there. Yeah. That's your true test. Alright, let's do a, a brief preview of the rest of the weekend, uh, just since you're a Pittsburgh Steelers fanatic. I know you didn't bring your napkin that you guys usually wave around, but, uh, my question to you is, are you playing with house money at this point? I mean, it, it, it must be such an interesting perspective to sort of look at the Pittsburgh Steelers and say, I'm stuck in a rut, and Absolutely, there's two directions that you can possibly go. Right? Consistently getting to the playoffs is, like I've said to you, often. I mean, I would love that because I've been out of the playoffs for so long tonight faced with the almost certain execution of my team. No, going out in the first round in the playoffs is a fucking kick in the nerds, dude. And I just, it's just been too long since I isn't enough. It feels like a participation trophy. Well, we made it. It's a participation. Yeah. Demerit making it. No, it's really not. That's kind of the bare minimum as a winning franchise. It sort of needs to be the bare minimum, you know? I agree completely, but I've just been so traumatized over the years by the Bears being so shit that it's just like, all right, well what can we do? Well, your franchise is taking steps in a positive direction. Mine has stagnated. Yeah. But like if you compare the two teams like. I was sort of thinking tonight, like even if the Steelers made it around farther, I still don't think they're in a great position because the thing that nags at me all the time is Rogers, even if he comes, is him coming back? Him and Tommy running it back next year. Is that honestly good news to me? No. What if they win another round? But the thing is, I don't think, what if they beat the Texans, though? I already know it's been put out there that the organization wanted Rogers to stay. Yeah, they said that today. Um. It had kind of been murmured around for a couple of weeks already. Mm-hmm. Tomlin still has another year left on his contract. I mean, this is best case scenario for the organization as far as just letting him run that out if it goes badly next year. Yeah. Yeah. So, but you're still in a position to win a playoff game like every year? Yeah, every year. I don't think this. I don't feel confident this year. I would feel more confident this year than you should have last year. Oh my God. And last year, Russell Wilson was your quarterback and honestly, I hate the fucking guy, but he went out there and made like vintage plays and won you, won you the game and like, yes. It came down to you needed that dude to miss a, a field goal and like, I mean, that guy's life probably sucks right now. Yeah, because I doubt Baltimore. This is in Philly. I doubt Baltimore fans are like. Not the death thready kind and welcoming. They seem like a death thready fan base. I don't know, but I, I haven't looked if they've done any death threats, but I bet, I bet I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, honestly, they, they have death. But you know what? They probably write 'em in like post style verse. No, that could be cool. I mean, we've seen the wire. Yeah. At least once. We should rewatch that soon. We should. Yeah. That's still after, after, after the pit. After the, after the pit. Yes. That those So what, what a great marriage of, uh, of shows. Those are sister shows. As much as you hate it, actually, kinda weirdly. Yeah. Like the wire and pit. And the pit. My favorite shows of all time though. I know. So, but that, doesn't that mean you have a soft spot for Baltimore more than like, say the other teams in your division, like they're your favorite rivals then, right? They're, they're your favorite rival. They should be. They should be because of like how they flexed. I mean, in the two thousands when they had Ray Lewis and Ed Reed, like if your, if your stance is, my position is they had a sick defense and we had a sick defense and I liked going head to head with them. And then it was sort of always an honorable battle between the two of them. If you say it's the Pats, like it's not really fair to you because. Nobody was beating them. Yeah. You know, the Steelers were the ones that just like poked their head up a couple times and got slapped down, you know, and like, but nobody was beating them. That was a really, really good Patriots team as it turns out, you know? So, and you want a couple in there? Yeah. It's annoying. But Roth Asperger snuck a couple in there. Like, that's all you really needed during the Tom Brady era. Like, gimme a break. Like nobody sn. Like it's more than Philip Rivers did. You know? So Jrue Brees snuck in one. That means Roth Asperger takes it over breeze. You know what I mean? Like those are all really good QBs. We, you hear us on the show all the time. We lament the, the QBI era. It's fucking back. 'cause that leads me to my last overall point as I snuck in your Steelers preview pot. Caleb Williams drives down the field with Aura Sack presence. He just looked like he was gonna do it, and it wasn't up to anybody else. The team had fallen apart around him at certain, at certain points. He's the reason I believed at halftime that this could be the outcome of the game. Still too much time on the clock for them. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Um, but his job is to go score and he did again. It was so good. I think it it was so good. It was so good. Um, yeah, I mean, it's really. Hard for me to sort of process this, so I guess I'll go do it. I was really calmed down by Caleb Williams. He really like in his post game, the very first interview, he was very chill and he was like, it's gonna be all right buddy. Coming off the field. He was just so calm already, like he did not have that adrenaline rush of a second year player. Who had just a hundred percent He, and also he said something interesting, and I, forgive me if I'm, because I'm paraphrasing here, but he said something interesting when he was stuffed into the booth with DJ and Colston and the, you know, 10 man Amazon Prime panel. Way too many people in that time, too cold. Also, it's like you guys can just go and studio. You don't need to be right next to the, just, it's fine. Like bring him into like a nice warm trailer somewhere, you know? Yeah. Just produce that better. I feel like I could do a better job of that, but. Just slide in there. Um, so if anyone from Amazon football coverage is listening, here's your guy. I don't wanna work for you. Fill up your product. I don't wanna work for you. But you know what? I never thought I'd say this. Fox call me. The A team for Colleen Barry's games is Tom Brady and, uh, and what's his, Brady, what's his name? Loves Caleb Williams. What's his name? Was Tom Brady's partner's name. Oh my God, I'm blanking. Kevin Stefan. No, that's, that's the Browns coach that just got fired. There's too many God names to keep track of Tom Brady broadcast partner. Kevin Burghardt. Yeah. Oh, thank God. Thanks for the help, Kevin. I think I know all those fool's names. I really need you to be the name person. You are not a name person. I'm not, we can't both not be, we'll, never remember anyone already the case. Call that guy who is the cure for the disease. It's gonna be here in a minute. What's his name? I don't know. Do you know? No. I don't know either. It's why there are descriptions of what people do in my phone. I think we're gonna be a diabolical old couple. We're gonna die so fast. Like we're gonna get lost in the house somewhere and like just not be, um, it's gonna be bad. That's okay. The world's going to shit. It's a good point. But you know, it's not gonna shit. The Chicago fucking Bears one. A playoff game for the first time in 15 years. And I'm delighted. I'm delighted now. I feel like we're officially playing with house money. Um, yeah, he kept it really calm and the thing that he said that really I really enjoyed was he said, it's my job to keep the guys calm. And he said, DJ said to me at one point, at one, uh, the second to last play of the game winning drive. I smiled at everybody and I didn't really know that I did that, but I. Really enjoy that. It's our job to go and win the game. We know what it means for the city. We know what it means for this fan base and we know what it means to change the narrative around here. And I, I really do feel like they bought in. They absolutely did. They played yet again. All 60 minutes. They all the yuck yucks talking about why they play their starters just to lose to Detroit. Well, we play football around here and honestly Leah, I'm pretty. Rah for this Bears team at this point, despite not being all year. And I have to tell you, I think my reservations contributed to the positivity because I didn't want to tip 'em in the wrong direction. I didn't wanna be a fucking jinx. Never be a jinx, never be a jinx. Just like, just just wait and see what happens when, when it's, I can start talking shit when we start putting some real wins together. And, and, and we've, we've done that now. So I'll talk shit accordingly, but like, we're not the two thousands Patriots yet. I mean, Caleb Williams is inspiring confidence. You're the 2020 something Patriots to contend with. Still on that front. I know. Isn't that crazy? Back? Isn't that crazy? God damnit. Well, I don't begrudge 'em. Honestly. If you're a well run organization, that's what happens. Don't begrudge them. 'cause you're in the NFC. No, but you're, you don't see those fools all the time. I know. I get that. And I, and I understand your frustration, but I also think. You're a fan of a team that's always there, thereabouts. And a there thereabouts team is a well run team. And it's because everybody in the building is smart and everybody in the building thinks that they can win every year, and that's what you have to be. And you never let it fall all the way off. And the Steelers have been doing that and yet the Patriots have more down years than the floor. No, I get that. And I, but I, but the thing is, I think the Patriots are a great example. It's like are the Steelers are a little scared? To lose, have a losing season. Yes. I think that at this point it's like you've almost got the yips on it. Yes, I think so. Because the thing you're sort of built on is that like we don't fire coaches. We don't ever have like a draft pick in the top 10 because we're too good every year and I like that culture and people want come play there. So you can always, you can always operate in the free agency, but the problem is. You need to get a franchise quarterback in there. We do desperately. Otherwise, you're just not gonna be relevant. Ooh, this pulling guys out of like semi-retirement or guys that should be retired is not working. It's not sustainable and it's not anything you can build the culture of the team around, right? Like there's a culture in Pittsburgh, right, of football and winning and what it means to be. A captain for the Steelers team. Right. And we need the quarterback who's going to come in and lead. Here's the other thing about having Aaron Rogers as your quarterback. He is so quick to turn around and blame someone else. Yeah. I hate that what you were talking about with Caleb. They're pretty well, hold on a second. No, they were pretty, they were all pretty weepy with each other after that win. I know it came down to like a misick, which isn't like the way you would choose to win. No go when you but him and Hayward were like hugging. There was a lot of like veteran like lovey dovey stuff going on. And I just feel like they might be able to get the, nobody believes in this trophy this year because like they. They seem to have like a little bit of a thing, much like the bears. I mean, not in a spectacular of a way, but they do have, find a way to win and, and they have more find a way to win than they had last year. And when the Steelers in particular have that, you can't count 'em out. And also, and I'll just say this lastly, but not leastly. I have to tell you there's a lot of bad CJ Stroud in the cold stats. There's a lot of bad CJ Strout in the cold stats. There's a lot of bad Texans on Monday night football stats. The the Pittsburgh Steelers. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm about to drop a fucking statistic on you. The Pittsburgh Steelers have not lost a home game on Monday night football. Oh, dare jinx. No, no. This is not a jinx. Okay. This is a flex. This is a flex. I'm trying to hype you up. I'm trying to hype you up. I'm speaking directly from you. You can't, and we, what, what have we just been talking about? You're a culture of winning. You have a, a quarterback who is a history. I hate the guy, but he has a history of winning football games. He has a history of making great plays late in games. He only ever won one. Super Bowl is my big knock against him so far. Like that door hasn't shut. I'm terrified. I'm terrified that Aaron Rodgers will get two, because then I need Caleb to get nine. You know, it's, I don't wanna explain the algorithm to everybody, but it's, I'll, I'll just tell you the equation. It's, it's my senses of despair times Aaron Rogers' Super Bowl Times. Brett FARs the Super Bowl, which brings it back down to just the same number that Aaron Rodgers will be. Whether that's one or two, hopefully one, uh, multiplied again by. How much I fucking hate Aaron Rogers and the Green Bay Packers. And that means, and then, oh, and then also, uh, he has to be better than Tom Brady. So he needs to be too better than Tom Brady to be, not better than Aaron Rogers. Does that make sense? So. It could happen is what I'm saying. And I just, I just wanna make sure that your position, because I think I gave up tonight, like I think I was absolutely devastated in the first half, like existentially destroyed and then Caleb was like, stop being a pussy and just won the game of football. And I just wanna ride with him forever now because that, yeah, I just think. Your defense is really good. You got healthy at the exact right time and you can't. My point is you can't be a Pittsburgh Steelers fan and be afraid of the Houston Texans. It is just not, it's not acceptable. You're now in the playoffs and you have to predict this situation, and I'm gonna now tell you based on that, preface my stat. The Pittsburgh Steelers have not lost a Monday night football game at home since 19. Pick a number between one and 10. 7 19 71 since they haven't lost a one night football game in home since 1971. Okay. That's a decent stat. You're playing with house money right now and I'm, and I'm feeling extremely magnanimous after watching Caleb Williams look like, honestly. The scariest man in football. I just watched Caleb Williams look like the scariest man in football. He looked like the fucking boogieman tonight. He did. And it was a playoff game and it was his first ever playoff game and he's now won for one in the playoffs. So I'm feeling really generous. Worried the first half. Every game though, seven games we've come back was worried in the first half that this was going to become the narrative 'cause it's his first playoff game. I want it to become a narrative now 'cause he fucking won it. Well that didn't look like it was going to be the case for most of the night, for most of the game. And you can say that seven times and it's true. I think this is the most true. It spent 18 points down. Yeah, that was crazy. That was fucking crazy folks. That was really something. Um. I'd love to check back in with you after you've watched the, uh, Steelers play the Texans. As you and I discussed right before the show, I still advise you to smash the under on that game, everybody. It's, it's a crazy obvious thing. Uh, the Steelers don't have high scoring games. You want it to be, you have Chris Boswell. Yeah. I mean, even he missed an extra point in that Ravens game, didn't he? Or was it a field goal? No, it was an extra point. No, he missed an extra point. Yeah. It was an extra point. And then, and he missed a field goal in the Browns game. Your field's terrible. It, it kicks. I think it's on purpose. I think you're, you just fuck with him. I, well, I think you're every game at Hinz Field. Ah, for sure. It's, Heinz Field is always gonna be Heinz Field. Yeah. I mean, it's this capitalist moniker. Um, I, I agree. It's a, it's snappier. I do appreciate it's hometown. I know it's whatever it's called. When you were growing up, I mean, I'd hate for the, I mean when I was growing up, it was three, there was Three Rivers Stadium. Oh, right. That sounds like you're going to a bad slot casino. I mean, there is the Three Rivers Casino. It's the confluence of the Three Rivers. There's a lot. The confluence of the three rivers. Sounds like a martial arts, uh, uh, meditation. That's, that sounds really cool. You should call your stadium the confluence of the three rivers. That'd be badass. That'd be cool. Um, we blew that up though. That's America for you. None of the teams wanted to play. We found natural resources, so we did the natural thing. We exploded it. Um, three Rivers, confluences. Fuck that sounds, sounds like you're being a communist. Um, anyway, listen, I, I think you should be confident against the Texans. I think they're a good team. I would hate to play 'em, but it's two pass rushes against each other. Who's gonna apply the most pressure if it looks like a Steelers game early, as we always talk about that always benefits us. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I hope it's not Aaron Rogers' fault that you win. That's what I'm always hoping. But I, I do want you to win. Hey, listen, immediate post. Bears aftermath reaction. Uh, I'm emotional, but I'm exhausted after watching that. Everybody. Um, thank you so much for listening. It was just a quick sort of one-off 📍 and, uh, and we'll be back with your regularly scheduled programming when, uh. When, when Leah stops agreeing to be on the show. Alright, thank you Leah for coming in. No problem. The first time on the show for Leah. She did great. Everybody. Yeah. Round of applause for your resident. Pittsburgh Steeler. Uh, anyway, bear down.