In addition to the creativity he has, I think he does a good job helping his offense a lot. All those tight ends back there again. Nice cut back by Walker, still going. Waitin' for the blocking to get there. It does. Touchdown, Seahawks. Here comes again. And a touchdown is the result. Hurtes is second of the night. The Eagles back on top. Third down and 10. Block, end zone. It is caught. Touchdown, Seattle.

Smith and Jigbook has.

Put the Seahawks on top. And on top, the Seattle Seahawks would stay after a Julian Love miracle interception on the ensuing drive for the Eagles. Assaulted away a 20-17 win for the Seahawks. A season-saving 20-17 win for the Seattle Seahawks who moved to seven and seven. The Philadelphia Eagles, once the toast of the NFL, once like three weeks ago when they were 10 and 1 and leading the entire football world, suddenly mired in a three-game losing streak, watching the number one seed slip away and realizing they had a chance to really bury the cowboys in the NFC East, and that is no longer the case. Dan Hansis here with Greg Rosenthal and Mark Cessler from our respective homes, heroes both. I thought, as they always do, Greggie, Troy Akeman summed it up well. At the beginning of that final Seahawks drive, Drew Lock in for an injured Gino Smith after a bunch of malarchy from ESPN hyping up, Will they or won't they start Gino? It is Drew Locky. He hadn't done much in the game to that point. Akeman laid it out well. He said, This is the biggest drive, the most important drive of Drew Lock's life.

I would say he responded.

92 yards with one timeout in his pocket didn't even need all of it. Twenty-eight seconds to go when they ended up scoring that touchdown. They started with 152. I think it's just so fascinating that these two teams met each other at this moment with both of their seasons was collapsing at the same time. I know Philadelphia has got a ways to go, but this is a devastating loss that they met on this night. We'll get into all the reasons that Philadelphia couldn't put the game away. But that lock in that moment, who I thought had been okay to that point but hadn't done much, and D. K. Metcalfe, who had been getting picked on a lot by Seattle fans this year for not making big time catches, not making the tough catches, has two just ridiculous catches in that drive. One could have been picked off, so you get a little fortunate if you're Jule Lock. Then the dime down the sideline to DK sets it up. They keep their composure and Jackson, Smith, and Jigba from Lock. I think it was just one of the best moments of the year. No matter where it goes from here, it reminded me so much of the Baker Mayfield Thursday Night game from a year ago, except the crowd here just was electric.

For Lock, and he said as much after the game, it was a moment of a lifetime, moment of a career, and a moment, you said it, that saves their season, Dan.

Yeah. I think that no matter what happens to the Seahawks and no matter what happens to them individually, the Drew Lock thing, it's easy to forget that if you weren't tracking this sport day to day, that he was packed into that Russell Wilson trade and discarded by the Broncos as a failed potential franchise quarterback and has really pretty much been maligned and his play has been mostly cold, not hot. I just thought that was the most fascinating aspect of this. He's been going... Any one of these players goes through so much behind the scenes and deals with so much adversity and negative press and negative talk. The way he was money on that final drive, the 34-yard pass to Metcalfe, the 29-yard burner to Jackson Smith and Jigbet to end it. Then what he said after the game, I just thought it's like he spoke from his heart and packed into all these seasons and some of these games that we'll completely forget about come February or March. This was a special moment. As great as Gino's story was a year ago, it's like they doubled down and created another quarterback story tonight. It felt very similar.

It's interesting.

Yes, Drew Lock, who, by the way, yes, he flunked out of opportunity in Denver, and then he had a chance to win the starting job last year in Seattle, and he got beat out by Gino, and he receded to the background until this moment. One thing, if you do follow the League, what Drew Lock lacks in perhaps ability or long-term sustainability is a quarterback for your team. He does not lack confidence. He's got some swagger to him and he is not someone who I don't think holds his tongue. And yes, he spoke honestly with Lisa Salter. I liked so much of what he said that I asked Eric, the producer, who we're going to be very nice and respectful to today because he just lost his fantasy playoff matchup by 0.3 points because AJ Brown couldn't make a catch on that last drive. Here is Drew Lock with Lisa Salter's moments after the win. Amazing won't do it justice. Amazing won't do it justice, but Amazing also doesn't do justice. But the whole line, what DK did on that catch, what the receivers did, what Ken Walker, Zach Charbonne did all game long with tight ends, man.

It takes a special group to rally around the guy that has come into a second game of the year. Used to the same thing all year long, same cadence, same spin of the ball, everything. A team like that, not just the offense, the defense to rally around. Me and the night, man, that was amazing. Then they followed up by asking Lock to take us inside the play that led to the 29-yard touchdown. I'll remember that play call for the rest of my life, but we're breaking the huddle. I knew Jack's had the one-on-one. Good reminder from the chain in the headset. I said, Hey, Jack, if you're one-on-one. I'm throwing you this pill. Sure enough, gave us a one-on-one look. Corner was soft. Jack's hit him with some speed. Back pylom, back box throw, came down with it. The CLC-Ox are a fringe playoff team. They're seven-at-seven. They certainly have a chance to get a wildcard spot, but they're not a Super Bowl contender. That said, this is why, one of the reasons why the NFL is as popular as it is, that in a prime time game here, this is drama. That's high drama.

That was to then to hear the very real human emotion from Locke after the game, a guy who knows that his football career was hanging on by a thread, and now he has this huge game and this platform. Very cool moment.

It also makes me think about how this year, so much of it has been about, do you have a backup quarterback who can give you a chance? I thought, and we talked about it on this podcast, that Drew Lock's the very end of his career in Denver after he had been benched out for a while, that he had come back in and he had shown, Okay, you can maybe work with this as a backup long term. That maybe he is going to have a career. Because the crazy decisions he would make, and you saw there was one tonight where he was falling and he tried to throw it and it ended up being ruled to sack. But he would make crazy decisions. He had pretty much taken those out of his game and it was like safe, Drewlock. You know that he's got some arm talent in there. But for the most part, I think he was just trying to avoid mistakes and make the right play. I thought that's been the case last two weeks. I thought he played pretty well against San Francisco. Even until that moment tonight when he had to drive the field, I actually didn't think he played poorly.

I really thought they just coached around him and didn't give him a chance to do much. It was a lot of short passes. It was a lot of the running game. It was a lot of trying to avoid mistakes. It was Pete Carroll's old formula that he used to have in the Russell Wilson days of like, Let's just get to the fourth quarter within one score, and our defense will keep it close enough. Trusting his defense now to do that is not normally what you want to do, but in this case, it worked against the Seagull's offense. Then here we are in the situation, we got one final stop. Let's go see what you can do with a regular straight back, drop back, passing game. He hit dimes and he got a little fortunate, but he let his playmakers make plays. That was a great touchdown catch too by Smith and Jigba, who's really been coming on. It was like the very tips of his fingers that he catches it. Just awesome all around and took advantage, I thought, of weird, predictable, man-to-man defense, basic defense from Matt Patricia's Eagles defense.

Yeah, I think your comparison to that Baker Mayfield game where you just joined the Raiders and beat the Raiders, where it's like you think he had this entire magical performance. It was really a quiet game up until the very end when he went electric. That was tonight because with two minutes to go, the Eagles had held the Seahawks to one of five on third down. I thought all that you had saw on offense was Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonne for the most part. James Bradbury, another tough game for him, had a killer DPI that set up that field goal for the Seahawks that kept them in it before they got the touchdown. And then he gives up the winning touchdown.

And the Metcalfe catch, too, by the way.

Absolutely. I feel bad for him because that's the position where you're just going to get visually victimized over and over. But he had a tough stretch of it down. And I think we were weighing all year long. Did this double coordinator switch for the Eagles? Are they the team that could just roll through that seamlessly? And on both sides of the ball, I think we're seeing, that's just not the case. They literally replaced the defensive play caller for this game. But on offense, it's like they're not the team they were a year ago and they're still figuring it out and we're a week away from Christmas.

Jesus. They replaced their defensive coordinator. Well, he's still the DC, but the guy call and plays with Matt Patricia, which just tells you. I remember talking about this back in the summer with the Eagles. Everything went to script for that team. I did wonder, and you know that some of the nick Ciariana stuff gets on my nerves. But I also in all honesty, do wonder how does this team, how does this roster, how does this coaching staff react when things aren't going their way? When the breaks are going the other way or the schedule doesn't fall the way it needs to be, or they don't start get ahead on a team and just steamroll them like they were doing last year. This season, especially obviously the last three weeks, but really the whole season. I mean, if you just look at their record and you're like, Oh, they're 10 and 4 in a losing streak, but they were dominant before that. They can get back to it. No, they weren't dominant when they were 10 and 1. They were a team like, because they were a good team, finding ways to win. But at no point have I thought that they were as good as, say, the Niners are.

I think they are very vulnerable as we come down the stretch here. I'm really interested to see what happens next. Now, in their favor is perhaps the softest schedule in football to close things out. You get the giants twice with Tommy Cutlet Mania dying down at the Superdome on Sunday and with the Cardinals in between. At the end of the day, 13 and four is still there, but I feel like they've been exposed a little bit these last.

Three weeks. Yeah. I do want to get to the offense later for the Eagles. But on that schedule, by the way, they do win the division if they win those three games because those are division games and they would hold the tie breaker over Dallas. If they win out, they will win the division. But they really lost any chance for the one seat tonight if they even had it. Defensively to change to Matt, Patricia, and I know this happened in between when we've done these shows, to me it was like, Oh, things are going worse than I thought. Because that's more about things happening inside the building. Yeah, he's got the defensive coordinator name now, Sean Desai, apparently, but by all intents and purposes, our reporting at NOL Network from Ian Rapport says Patricia is the defensive coordinator. He's calling the plays, he's.

Organizing- They kicked him upstairs, too. He's not on the sideline.

The reports that came out afterwards, there was one in the Philadelphia Inchire that decided they didn't have enough confidence. But the other one that caught my eye locally was there's just been a lot of finger-pointing. That's what it spoke to to me was like, Wow, people are pointing fingers. There's blame. Things aren't good inside that building for a change like that to happen. You saw tonight, I don't know what the difference was with Matt, Patricia, they were rotating a ton of players in the secondary. They weren't getting a great pass-over. They seemed very basic. They were playing man-to-man on almost all third downs. You could see on that last drive, it's like they were just playing man-to-man on the outside. It's easy to second-guess when you give up two big plays, but DK, Metcalfe, and Drew Lock were like, Thank you. This is what we can go for. They didn't get the pass rush after him. It obviously didn't make a positive difference. I know at that point, they had only scored 13 points, but to end that way is just a tough way to end a tough week. It is a tough week. If you're changing your coordinator in week 15 when you're 10 and 3, that's a.

Tough week. Mark, not to be mean to Drew Lock or to denigrate him anyway on a special night, but when he's saying after the game, he had diagnosed immediately that the safety was going to drop down, so be ready, Jackson, I'm going to hit you. I mean, this isn't exactly Payton Manning in 1999 here. No. This is Drew Lock that's just diagnosed her defense at the biggest moment of the season.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, this is someone with a limited starting resume and I saw it exactly for what it was. I want to just note one thing, though, because when things are tough, when you're on a skid like this, it comes down to these little moments that have nothing to do with the plague call at all. Julian loves closing interception, we talked about before we got on a her, without him running into the calf of a teammate, that doesn't happen. It's like, that's just human physics and that's just something that happened in nature in favor of the Seahawks. But I would.

Say even- Great play, though. That was incredible. Even if he didn't get his foot down, I'd.

Just say that was a great play. It was a great play. But I think we could acknowledge that the where human bodies were on that play was important. But the first interception he had, he was clearly yanking on Quez Watkins, on his jersey. It's like, you can say that's ticky-tacky, but that would get called in other games and it just was overlooked. It's like two major turnovers that if you're an Eagles fan, you're steamed about both of them just by the way they happened.

Yeah, I think the Eagles fan right now is wondering what the hell is going on right now. But I also am thinking about the Jalen Hurtz side of things because they're also saying, Man, if this guy wasn't sick, maybe this game is different. There's a good chance it is because Drew Lock is not Jeno Smith, even if Jeno is not having the year he had last year. You're set up really well if you have the healthy Jalen Hurtz. He's sick. He gets downgraded over the weekend because the illness worsens and every time they cut to him, and I know he's a stoic dude by his nature, but usually that's stoicism. You see it's just like stealy confidence. He's one of those guys that he passes, like everybody likes to say, like the Mamba mentality. I guess I'm an old Timer, geriatric millennial mark. I think of Jordan and just that resolve. I didn't see that in his eyes. He looked like a guy that was like, I cannot wait to get back into bed because I feel like shit. To his credit, he leads them down the field on the first possession for a touchdown.

But they were pretty much out of sorts for most of this game in his stat line, even if some of the officials didn't help him out. It was a miracle act of physics on the last love interception. But the deep shot where they had a chance to put the game away and they try the deep shot that Love picks off in the end zone, that was just a silly play call. That's also not the first time the Eagles have had a bad play call. That jets game, I remember from October, another one where it's like, you have a chance to play this a certain way and salt away an inferior opponent. Instead, you open the door and gave them new life unnecessarily.

Yeah, they had the ball with the lead there, Dan. What was it? It was 17-13 there, and they're driving, and they could put the game away. Pete Carroll had burned two of his timeouts on some of the most idiotic timeout management I've ever seen in my entire life by anyone. Pete Carroll could have like a 30-for-30 just on his bad timeout usage. At that point, they're in position to run six minutes off the clock if they can have a sustained drive. You're right, that play call and the decision to throw it, because that's on Hertz too. He doesn't necessarily have to throw it there deep. Then they get the ball again because the defense holds up with 6-35 to go, and they start moving the ball. I just think of how these last three drives finished for Hertz. There was that interception, and then the next one where if they get seven yards, they basically win the game. They had already picked up a couple of first downs running the ball. They had taken four minutes off the clock. They're almost at the two-minute warning. It's third and seven. And Hertz just bailed out of the pocket too soon, immediately.

He sensed a little pressure that wasn't quite there because it was Mafe who ended up going to the ground and he runs into the pressure. Then he just starts running all over the place. If he had made a great play, you would have said, Oh, what a great player. But he left the pocket immediately. Again, they were sending pressure and it was like, you had concepts there where guys should be open if he just stayed in the pocket. That was one of three or four decisions on the night. One where he missed Devont to Smith wide open, coming over the middle would have been a big gain, where instead, he tried to go deep another third and 10, where he seemed to just not see the field. Is that being sick? I don't know. But he also has been doing similar types of things throughout the year. He's played well, but I think tonight he ran the ball well, but his passing was not good. I didn't think it was going to cost him, but it did cost him in the end.

Yeah, that third and seven, I'm looking at it and I'm like, I know it's going to happen here. He's going to scramble for the first down, slide down after a nine-yard game and the game's over. Sure enough, I'm looking as he's dropping back and you don't see a spy on him. I'm like, Oh, this is... I wonder, I'm not going to get inside his head, if he had the same thought, he's like, I'm just going to take off here. I'll get this on my own. To the credit of Seattle's defense, they kept him contained. He tried to break out one way, they wouldn't let him out the back door. Then he tried to double back the other way and that was sealed off and then he had to throw the heave. That was just a great stand.

I guess I just refused to panic over the Eagles right now, though, nor would I probably in any situation just because I'm not that attached to them. But I'm more saying that I trust that I think sometimes I know it looks like there's a lot of chaos, you switch the coordinator. Some of these that wind up going the distance have to make these tough decisions. And it's easy to forget in late January that this happened. I don't love the switch to Matt, Patricia, who knows? But it's like the Eagles overall, holistically, over the past three, four, or five years, have been one of the most consistent franchises. They lost to the Niners. They lost to the Cowboys. That's two of the top three teams in the NFC. They got nipped tonight. Is the sky falling? I don't know. I think your quarterback was ill this evening. They're a little bit out of sorts and you got three Cupcases coming up. I'd say you'd probably go three and a in those games, and you're good and we'll see what happens from there.

I agree with that one. Right now, they're bad, though. If the playoff started today, they'd be in such trouble because they got a lot of problems. They could improve on it, I think you're right in the next three weeks and then get in better shape and they might win the division.

I just think outside of San Francisco, because it was 24 hours ago that we were concerned about the Cowboys and we still are, the whole league is just imperfect. Outside of one team right now that's just destroying people. The Eagles to me, if you catch any of these teams on an off day, they're right in it. I know Philly fans are probably going nuts, but it's like, I don't know.

I guess- I understand what you're saying, Mark, but I think, not to keep harking back to last year's team, but this team is so much different. Even when they were 10 and 1, they were getting the job done. They just weren't... They've never been a juggernaut this season. I know that sounds.

Silly, but watching- The defense isn't good.

It's a bad defense. -watching and we've been watching the games and people that are actually watching this team week after week are seeing that they are vulnerable. Yes, they probably will take care of business. They deserve this easy close to the schedule now because they went through a f'in' gauntlet through November and into December. But that was telling some of the things that happened in that gauntlet. The gauntlet will return. And crushingly, I would think for this Eagles team, the road is going to go through San Francisco, barring something unforeseen now. I think that's a big takeaway from this game. I have just one more thing not to bring up 42, Greg, because I know you don't like when I bring up 42, but that had big 42 vibes. The last drive, they're down four points. They have a quarterback that nobody thinks is going to pull it off. He's just firing the ball and he's throwing multiple balls into coverage that could be intercepted repeatedly. But he's still moving down the field and then all of a sudden, he hits the touchdown in your throw and you're thinking to yourself, Wait, did that just happen?

If you're a fan of the Pats in 2008 or the Eagles today, you're going to watch that last drive and be like, He put three balls up for grabs and we could not get it done. So very frustrating for the defending conference champs.

Kind of reminds me of 52 because you got a Eagles hero, Matt Patricia, now on your sideline. He was coordinated in defense while nick Foles was putting up a 40-burger on the Patriots. He's a Super Bowl hero for the Eagles already. You have Julio Jones, who was involved late in that game, almost could have beat them in the divisional round or was that the wildcard round? For the Falcons, you're bringing all the old heroes back. You got Brandon Graham and Fletcher, Cox, Mink, and Sachs, pretty much the only good pass-rush they had all night. One quick thing I do want to say on the Seahawks before we move on from this game, though. They have a really good chance to make the playoffs. They are a flawed team. We'll see if Gino comes back or not. Witherspoon was out for this game, Jamal Adams was, I think, quiet benched because he finished last week and then they put him on the injury report and then he was and active. I think they just like... That was a nice way to bench him. They did bench Reekwilling, who was in and out of the lineup all night.

He was out for the first quarter, out from us to the third. They made some changes tonight trying to improve things. They find a way to get a win. Now here's their schedule: at Tennessee, home for Pittsburgh, at Arizona.

That's.

Quite soft. If you win all three, you're in, for sure, in the NFC West, I mean, in the NFC. And two out of three, and they might be favored in all three of those, they got a chance to get on a little run here if they can bottle.

This-so, Greg, they do. I know that you're in an endless cuddle party with Seattle Seahawks fans, but I think they're also an argument for not having the seventh playoff team because I liked what happened tonight. It's a nice story. But overall, the Seattle Seahawks, to me, are just not what I view as playoff material. I mean, they could... That's a nice, easy schedule and I think they'll find a way in there and that's nice. But I think on both sides, both conferences, I'm seeing postseason Fair that to me is not worthy of the post-season. But there's nothing we can do about it because if anything, we'll add another playoff team probably two, three years from now.

There are four... Well, there are five, but two of them are in the NFC South, so one's going to win the division. But looking at the standings now, there are four, seven and seven teams vying for those two wildcard spots. You have the Minnesota Vikings 7 and 7, the Rams 7 and 7, the Seahawks 7 and 7, and the Saints 7 and 7.

Right, and the Bucks for now. For now, it would be Rams and Vikings in, but it doesn't matter much. Rams do have that sweep of the Seahawks, which could potentially help them if they end.

Up being the two. I mean, half of those team's own fan bases aren't even begging for an extra game. I just find.

It- Yeah, but you're all pumping up the culture of the AFC. What's the difference?

Yeah, that's not true. Tell me which one.

The Sains fans, I think, would be happy to see that season. We've been down that road a million times. But it's like-Even.

Then in their hearts, they.

Want it. Listen, these teams, if we're talking about who's winning the Super Bowl, just like your beloved Cults in the AFC, Mark.

These guys are all- Spice Rack says the Rams are going. Spice Rack's been hot on the Rams, winning the Super Bowl.

Spice Rack has been brought up on the show literally 10 shows in a row. They're seed fillers in The Big Dance. But part of the fun is this time of year, who's going to get in? You know what I mean? These fan bases are excited, Mark.

I know. That's okay. I'll go back to how I opened this. I've never been a huge Drew Lock guy, but that was one of the more memorable things that's happened this entire season.

That place was rocking. The atmosphere at the end made it feel pretty special.

I'm cool with that.

Great. All right, let's take a break and then we'll do a little bit of news and say goodbye. All right, welcome back. Let's get caught up on the news before we sign off for a day. Let's start with the Cincinnati Bangles. They're another one of those teams that are making a hard charge for a playoff spot over in the AFC. Jamar Chase is their superstar wide receiver. He went down in the team's week 15 comeback win over the Vikings, and rap sheet reports that Chase is likely to miss, quote, some time. We don't know how long that will be, but you're not going to see him in week 16. Then that sounds like a potential multi-week injury, so that is going to mean the likes of T. Higgins, Tyler Boyd, and Joe Mixen are going to really have to raise their game with, of course, Jake Browning, a quarterback, to finish off this improbable rise and get to the postseason.

I'm sick about it because I'm with you, Mark. You jokingly said maybe the Bengals should become team of ATN now. I've just been so surprised and I've been so wrong about Barry and Zach Taylor in this spot and enjoying being wrong and just how spicy, browning has been that I was like, Oh, this would be a fun. This is a fun story. Looking at their schedule, it's like, They can win these games. I think they should beat the Stealers. To lose Chase and DJ Readers, it's just like, This team's luck is just outrageously bad. Reader, one of, if not their best defense players, and then to lose Chase on top of everything, it stinks. Don't let the Stealers win another game. This Stealers team doesn't deserve it. Well, they stink.

Nope, they've got to be throwing. I'm enjoying that, though. You're enjoying being wrong, Greg, about Zach Taylor? I'm enjoying being right.

Yeah, I'm enjoying watching the game. The act of being wrong, I don't know if that's enjoyable, but they're winning me over. They are pretty fun to watch. It's been cool to see what they're doing.

They go to Pittsburgh, then they go to Kansas City. I would say this, though. I think Trent and Irwin has stepped in and helped at times.

A little Yosobas pop?

Well, yeah. Half our news run down is AFC North Injuries. They're not alone. They've just got to survive. Okay.

Trevor Lawrence also dealing with injuries. He suffered a concussion during Sunday night football. Now he has to clear the league's concussion protocol to get clearance to play week 16 against the Bucks. This is a Jaguars team on a three-game losing streak. They're Fugazie, and now their quarterback is hurt, losing interest, falling asleep. Someone talk about the Jaguars?

Let's hear Doug Peterson talk about it because I was wondering. We saw Trevor Lawrence's head slam into the turf early in the third quarter. No, do we need to see the spotter? Nope, do we even need to check on it? Then we find out after the game he has a concussion.

I think it was obviously the scramble play, I think it was the last one that he got hit on potentially. It's hard to say, but continued to play the rest of the game. Then he self-disclosed after the game to our docs and our trainers. You mean the scramble play where he took an illegal, fore-arm shiver to the face? I got Maurice Jones-Drew, who's like a Jaguars, Ring of Honor guy. I'm like, That's a penalty. You can't do that. Mjd's like, Oh, yeah, you could do that. Once he leaves the pocket, he's not protected anymore. Of course, he's protected from a Cary Van Eric for arm. What are we talking about here? You can't do that. Whatever. Anyway.

Even with them, though, they feel like a team in freefall. There's a three-way tie. I think they've not been the same since Christian Kirk was out. I don't know. I don't really trust this team at all. We talked about.

It last night. I'm just settling scores with MJD right now. He's not even here.

Well, he's not going to be hearing this either. They're going to have to go take a tee's face.

The Bucks might end up... I'm with you guys that they would be the most fun NFC South division winner. They might get CJ Bethard this week, which is a pretty big difference if Trevor Lawrence is out.

Arthur Smith is an absolute mess as a head coach. If he comes back, shame on everyone connected with the Falcons because you send Desmond Ritter out on the field in week 15 with a chance to kick that field goal. You have him drop back to pass. He throws the interception because he's been doing that all year. Then the head coach comes out. Instead of saying, That's on me. I need to make a better play call or we need to get better. He's now going to what, bench Desmond Ritter again? Is that what we're hearing? It's being reported. Who has the report on this one? It was all the Smith himself. Smith at his press conference said that he's still considering what direction to go a quarterback for their matchup with the Colts. It could be going back to Taylor Heinekee. It's making my head spin because I think we were all in agreement on Thursday's preview podcast that although it was weird to bench Ritter and then go back to him, it looked like Ritter was making strides, but now he makes a bad throw and they lose and now you're going to go back to Heineke.

The whole thing is just sloppy.

Yeah, it's just an extension of Sunday's game where it's like the vision for the Falcons was extremely cloudy in that loss, a terrible loss that I put on the coach. This is just mismanagement. It's like, you know what? You went into the season with two guys who aren't worthy of being your starting quarterback. The fact that you go into musical chairs mode is not a surprise, but it is a disappointment.

It's funny you say musical chairs because when he declared Ritter is going to be the starter again, he said, This is my decision. I'm not going to be playing musical chairs. Now we're here a few weeks later, and it's one of my coaching cliches I've noticed over the year. On Mondays, whenever they say they're considering making the change, because they didn't bench him during the game, and he's putting it out there on Monday that I might make a change, they're making it. Unless there's some weird circumstance, which this is not like they're making that change. I think he sees his career flashing before his eyes and in his heart of hearts, he trust Heineke more. But I will tell you, we'll point out Dan, as bad as that play was, they had, I think it was a bottom five success rate in terms of running against the Panthers of any team in any game all year. Just the whole thing stinks, is what I'm saying. They're supposed to be a great running team and they can't run the ball either. It all stinks.

I'm just saying they're a bad, boring team, but they've won games this year by being boring. And being boring in that spot is running the ball, going up four, and then saying, Our defense is pretty good. We're going to keep Bryce Young out of the end zone and win another ugly game. But instead, they took a different route and they were punished for it. The Steelers might be going a different route at quarterback again. Man, what a year. Yes, this is ridiculous. I hope there's never another year like this in the NFL with the quarterbacks. It's just every team. It's either Star is gone or in some cases you have a nice situation, let's say in Cleveland right now or in Cincinnati. But then there are the other cases how it usually works is Star gets hurt, backup stinks, try another backup, he stinks. Put in the other backup, he stinks, maybe bring back the first backup. Here is the Steeler situation. Now, Mason Rudolph, who stinks, he's expected to start in week 16 for Pittsburgh with their season on the line because Mitch Trabiski has just not been able to play the guitar, but they are keeping the door a jar for Kenny Pickett.

Okay, good luck with all that. I mean, Kenny Pickett, I don't think he could play either.

I got to.

Say, Kennys is definitely Mike Tomlin.

Looks pretty good, at least in comparison to Mitch Trabiski. There's nothing-.

I will agree with that.

Speaking of taking Ls, I think I want to see Mitch Trabiski take was actually worse than my Chargers are going to the Super Bowl take this year. I thought Trabiski showed a little something last year, but my God, has he been brutal? Yeah, they go to Rudolph unless Pickett gets healthy enough to play this week. They also will be without Minkah Fitzpatrick, so that's a pretty big loss. It sounds like that.

Might be a few months. I mean, arm and arm with your quarterback, Mitch Trabiski take is my 12 wins for the Stealers. I mean, that might take a year and a half for that to be the case with the way they're trending.

Oh, yeah. In KZ, the safety got suspended for the season in Pittsburgh as well, which it was, again, a Kareem Jackson thing where he had been fined and suspended previously for similar types of hits. This one just put it over the top. It's bad. I don't know. If they lose out, you could definitely hear some rumblings there. We'll see.

What do you think? Tomlin is Chuck Null, obviously, but one of the greatest coaches of the last 30 years. But if you don't have a quarterback, you're just banged. Now, he has a role in that because he has a big voice there.

But this is- He picks these coordinators. One thing I heard, and maybe it was Shaq that said it, there was just a little whisper. It's like, Is there a chance out there in the world that maybe Tomlin would want a fresh start? That the two sides, they've been together so long because he would be number one pretty much on the coaching list of teams that would want. He could make money elsewhere. I don't know because it's not working right now.

Put it this way. You put Mike Tomlin in that defense with a proficient quarterback. I don't think we're talking about Mike Tomlin's job being... But it is weird. Not only the failure, the lack of success in the last few years, but also some of the effort plays you see from that wide receiver room, which is a mess despite being talented. They had some of the earmarks of a team that is a little bit not up to code, put it that way. Then finally, this is not surprising news, but disappointing news. Keaton Mitchell, undrafted rookie of the Ravens, who really has impressed everybody with his incredible speed and breakaway ability. He suffered a really bad looking knee injury on Sunday night football, and it was confirmed as a torn ACL. He'll get surgery and rehab it. Hopefully, we see him back with the team and training camp next year. It's not something that takes away any of his skills because they are quite breathtaking.

I think that's, like we talked about it last night, that was an exciting, evolving, emerging element to their offense that's been stripped away. They lost JK Dobbins. Before the early on, you're leaning on Gus Edwards and Justice Hill and capable... I like Gus Edwards, but I just think this made the Ravens offense that needed a little extra spice. Also losing Mark and Bruce, and he provided that and he's gone. Like I said, every one of these AFC North teams are getting banged with transition and injuries.

I think it's a killer because if you look at all the defenses they're going to play, it almost seems true for all the good defense. If you're going to beat them, you're going to beat them running. That's definitely true of the Dolphins defense. It's definitely true of the 49ers defense, which rates as a pretty average rush defense who they're going to play this week. It's true of the Chiefs defense. All these teams in Baltimore wants to run. They're a great running team. They will run, but they're just not going to run as well without Mitchell.

All right, that's what's happening in the news. Eric, jump in a second. Me and you are one of thousands of people across the country who saw their fantasy seasons end in crushing manner. You too, Greg?

Mine wasn't crushing manner, but it was just it was manner. I ended up starting Drew Lock in my fantasy playoffs. That was great.

I don't know, is there something we can do? Greg, wrote a world brick by brick. Mark, I want to hear your thoughts, too, because you really dove in feet first into the fantasy world again. How do we fix the playoffs in fantasy? Because it's already a crapshoot, obviously, but it seems so cruel to build a roster and then on the whims of one Sunday, essentially, it's decided whether your season continues. Should we shorten? Here's my idea. Shorten the regular season from 14-10 weeks, okay? That's enough time for teams to establish themselves and build up a roster, find a group, and then make these two-week playoffs. How about that?

What is it? Total points over two weeks?

Yes. Okay. Cumulative. So you don't get banged by a wonky week, as I did and many others. You get a better chance to see these teams that you've built a roster over three months, two and a half months to show who's the true best team over the last two weeks. I'm going to throw this out there in my league tonight and see if I can get some type of in-season rule change. I don't think it's going to play, but maybe if we start a movement to make fantasy playoffs fair, we can get something going here. That's my campaign platform. I would be, first of all, not only the only presidential candidate who's not insane and over 80 years of age, I would have a real platform that people could get behind.

I like it.

God.

Bless America. Yeah, I like it. I think it cleans some things up. I got nipped. I just missed the fourth and final. We have an NIT in ours where there's a consol around. It's like, I don't care about that. That means nothing to me. I'm a grown adult. I don't.

Need to be in sixth. I would drop all my players at a general principal if they try to have me in a loser's bracket.

Well, exactly. Unless they put a little scratch in the loser's bracket, some lakes do that.

I don't care about that. If I'm not in the first heat and I don't want to be part of this. But I would say this, I lost frustratingly just by the point total thing. I think even that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense on some level. We work with some of a fantasy group of analysts who do a really hardcore job. But I do notice, and I've said this to them in a joking manner, that the minute the fantasy season ends, I mean, there's free agency and that's the next big ten-pull event, but they're hard out, man. Their football season is over. So now you're telling them that their football season is over in week 10 or 12? I might switch jobs at that point because I think they're just as integral to what we do. And they'd be essentially sitting at Thanksgiving dinner being like, I'll see you in March, everyone. It's been nice. I'm going to go take a three-month break by the pool.

I like your concept, Dan. I like your idea, Mark. It was a different world. I have talked to Silva about this when I used to work at Rotor. I didn't realize it at the time because we were still working after January first or whatever, but it is quite a big exhale. It is quite a difference between that job and this job. I like your two-week playoffs. Maybe only the semifinalists make it, Dan. It's four teams, so it's four total weeks of.

The playoffs.

That's good. You could do weeks, what, 14 to 17, something like that. That could work. I don't hate that. Maybe reward however you want to do it financially or whatever for first and second place and points for the season or throughout the whole season. That gives a little... Some leagues do that.

Can.

I ask one question?

Because Eric seems to be taking it well, though. I think he's amazing.

Well, he hasn't spoken in about an hour.

Well, no, I mean- Oh, there he is. I might deserve this one because I did leave Goff and Addison.

On my bench.

I got.

Spooked by Goff and then he throws five.

Touchdowns and I lose by 0.4..

But wouldn't you, Eric, like the opportunity to insert Jared Goff into your lineup next week and prove once and for all that you were the team that deserved to.

Move on. -muralysis and buy-over analysis thing.

I over-managed my way out of the playoffs because it's one bad week. But isn't that not to the devil's advocate? Isn't that why we love football in some ways? Is that when you get to the playoffs, you can have that great season, Packers, going 15 and 1. But if the giants are feeling good that day and you get a little tight and you over-manage it, you might be going home, Brett Farrve.

Yeah.

Let me ask you a question.

I lost.

This week. Right. So Dan, had you made the playoff, would you be hot on all these rule changes? Had you made it into the playoffs, would this still be something that burns in your mind?

I lost in the playoffs. I don't even know what a Coctail League you're in that wasn't even in the playoffs yet. Are you a week 18?

I have issues with my.

League for sure. If he won tonight, he would not be making these.

Rule proposals. No, I would say fantasy football is fundamentally perfect. But I lost, so it's not.

All right.

That's enough.

This is our last Monday night quite like this because next Monday night is Christmas and there's no more Troy and Joe Monday nights the rest of the year.

Well, they had a great season and we will continue on because our season is far from over. We will take a day off, at least from the microphones, and then we'll be back on Wednesday. It's a great show Wednesday because it's, of course, Connie Fox Wednesdays, but also it's our holiday special. If it's our holiday special, that means Connor Or is back to review the Hallmark Christmas movies that have most connected with him. I'll tell you this, I watched one of them over the weekend with my wife, The Santa Summit, and it's unhinged, I'll say that. If anybody wants to get ahead of this, check out The Santa Summit, which we'll be discussing. There's another movie that Colleen's Assignment. You know Colleen. And her husband, John, who we saw on Friday night, we had a great little holiday gathering. John was there. Colleen was in Detroit for the coverage of the games on Saturday. Colleen's assignment is to cover the other movie we're discussing, Holiday Hotline. John said there's no way in hell Colleen will do the assignment that she's going to say she's going to do it and not do it. I believe in Colleen that she will watch Holiday Hotline.

Look it up if you want to watch along with us or talk along with us. The Santa Summit and holiday hotline discussed with Conor on Wednesday.

We're going to have to quiz Colleen deeply about this. I'd be surprised. When you give her a task, I feel like she, if anything- That's whatI said- So much work on it. That's what I said.

John said that she has no ability to sit on the couch and watch it. It's something about her ability to keep a train of thought and focus on one thing. I don't know what that could be connected to. All right, let's go. The test is on for everyone. Until then, hit the clock.