Drive Time: Week 18 Variety Show with Marcel Louis Jacques

Plus we'll hear from head coach Mike McDaniel. I'm gonna talk to you about legacy games and quarterbacks and playoff success, and rattle off some statistics from some of the top quarterbacks in the history of the league in big time games that might surprise you a little bit. All of that and more from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the Draft Time Podcast. Maggie my guest today, Week eighteen variety show, last one

of the regular season from ESPN Marcel Louis Jack. Joining me today for the final variety show of the regular season is Marcel Louis Jack from ESPN, author of some of my favorite stories around the team this year. Marcel, welcome back in to the podcast.

nineties Dolphins and Bills rivalry very much? And the Dan Marino Jim Kelly era because this game kind of you know, we had Vic Fangio yesterday talking about how Josh Allen kind of reminds him of John Elway, but that's like the era of those quarterbacks Elway, Marino, Kelly. Do you remember much about those nineties Dolphins and Bills games?

My stepdad at the time would actually pick the Dolphins all the time because Ricky Williams was a cheat code in like Matten and oh one, and so I actually hated the Dolphins because of that. I had no real reason too. All I knew is that Ricky Williams was getting me for a butt twenty every time we booted that game up, and I couldn't stand it. But no, I didn't. But I mean, I've heard so much about them, obviously,

living in uh, living in Buffalo, living in Miami. To be honest, I think I heard I heard a lot more about the Dolphins from Bills fans than I hear about the Bills from Dolphins fans. There's genuine hatred up there for this team down here. Uh, you know any other any other you know, in a vacuum, any other time you moved from you know, a cold environment to Miami like Miami is is a it's a worldwide destination, like this tropical paradise that people all and from every

country in the world try to visit to. Nobody would bad an eye. No one would think twice if I moved from Green Bay to Miami. If I moved from you know, Minia, not Miapis like Deluth to Miami, nobody would baden eye. But I come from But because it's Buffalo, and because it's the Dolphins and Bills, I am still

hearing about it. Almost three years later, It's been almost three damn years, man, and they're still mat so, like, yeah, it's it's a real rivalry, and I can you know, as much as I roll my eyes about it, you know, anytime I see you know the don't you wish you

were in Buffalo? Oh you abandoned us. Oh you shouldn't take it, I rolled my eyes, but like I can't help but at least appreciate it, because like it means that people care, and like Bill's fans are a lot of things, you never accuse them of not caring about this team.

media all the time. It's so funny to me. And that's kind of where I wanted to go with the opening of the podcast, because you know, the rivalry you talk about, the hatred this, I've seen the squish the fish things so many times. Guys like dolphins are mammals and they ain't fish like that. That's just one thing I want to get out of my chest real quick. But let's go back to that, Marcel, because you talked about the transition from Buffalo to Miami. I love the

Delop shout out too. By the way, I had Daniel oyafusion last week because he covered the Ravens and the Dolphins and he's from Baltimore. But you've done both. But you're also more impartial because Daniel grew up a Ravens fan. Obviously I grew up a Dolphins fan. I'm just curious to, I guess go into more detail about the transition, and I guess not to the lifestyle difference, but maybe the difference between covering Sean McDermott's Bills versus Mike McDaniel's Miami Dolphins.

It's it. They're defensive. They are anything that can be taken as a slight will be taken as a slight and met with equal or greater force. Like they are. They really rally around that like it could be things could be going great. But like you say, one bad thing about them, and it's nobody believes in us, like nobody likes us. Everybody hates it. Buffalo against the like, it's like that. So that's Sean McDermott, And that's Sean McDermott to a t like he he operates with a

chip on his shoulder. He operates with a insane competitive street and he has ingrained that into that team. So I remember when I got there. I actually wrote a story about, you know, how that locker room was assembled, and it's just like a gang of misfit toys. You know, guys who were cast off from other teams or traded or cut or fired or this and that. Like it's not a team. It was not a collection of people that was used to success, and they use that to

their advantage. You know, during this the come up from probably what twenty nineteen to we'll call it twenty twenty nineteen and twenty that chip on their shoulder off. Nobody thinks we could do this, nobody thinks we were good enough to do it. And I think where like they hit their plateau usually in like mid season. Every mid season is like people think they're good and they don't

know how to mentally handle that. So like it's always like something happens that like wakes people of like, oh, they said that we fell off, and then they woke up. So I think like that Sean McDermott article, it was an excellent article by Tye dun but I think that ironically has fueled the build, like that's how they operate. And I don't know if that's necessarily the same thing

here in Miami. I don't know if that's necessarily Mike mcda annuals rallying cry, like every coach to some extent tells their players right like, hey, nobody thinks you can do it, Go prove them wrong. Like that's like a fundamental, damn motivating chip in coaching. But I don't feel like it's the exact same I think I think Mike McDaniel is a lot more how do I put this, he's a lot more willing to accept or at least, you know,

acknowledge outside narratives. For example, he great, he gave this great answer the other day when when you know, talking about how to how to spent his off season like building himself up, and he was like, I think you know he's he was able to get to this point because he understands the narrative, Like you understand why people are saying this about you. You're not entitled to perfect treatment.

You are not entitled to positivity and sunshining rainbows every time you The fact is you have finished the season. You have not been healthy for an entire season. Go fix that, Use that and fix it. So like on one side, it's like use that energy, and like in a negative way, not a negative way, but use that energy as in like, uh, oh, we don't. They don't believe you, they don't think you could do it. They don't. And on McDaniel's side, it's more like they're saying it

for a reason, like you haven't done it. Like that's true, but it's up to you to fix it. So like it's kind of like two sides of the same point there. And obviously, you know, I think Mike McDaniel is a lot funnier than Sean d I think I think I heard I have heard more jokes in just a throwaway Mike press conference then I did in two years covering Sean. Sean is not day. I tried to joke with him at one point about the g shock watch he had on. I was like, oh, man, you can't hide money, can you?

And man, he just got like so beat red embarrassed that I was like, Okay, am my bad man. That's Joking's not for everybody. Joking's not for everybody. Like he's good codes Like I'm not saying it's like as a critic critique against him, but Mike is a different kind of humor.

the two sides of the same quint. I like that phrase you use because McDaniel's, you know, kind of rallying cry sometimes is a bunch of guys who were told they can't right guys that you know, a Raheem Moster who has his first Pro Bowl season in his ninth year of his career, alec Ingold, who was you know, released from a Raiders team where he played pretty well, and then winds up down here as a captain ay a key piece of this locker room and this football team.

And that kind of leads me to the next question here as we get more to the focus of the game, because like this is why you're the perfect guest for this, Marcel, because you have this level headed approach of there's no emotions with you in this matchup, it's all logic, and you just kind of seem to have this even keel

approach to what this game could look like. Because if you listen to my podcast all week, I'm kind of a mess man, Like I've been this confident very you know, I consider myself pretty knowledgeable with the Dolphins, and I see this team all year long. I saw it in training camp I saw it back in OTAs. They're a really good football team. I've been confident in their ability all year long, but right now, because of Josh Allen's success, because of that Week four game, because of the nine

of the last ten, my confidence is completely shook. Like I don't know where to go with this game. Like I feel like they they should and could win it, but my heart's like, but you've been burned on this matchup before. So that's all in a prelude to ask you what do you think we get out of this

Dolphins team that's facing all these injuries. You know that you talk about the rallying cry, Adversity is an opportunity, Right this is the most adversity they've probably faced all year as they you know, the divisions on the line after it looks like it was in hand back in the start of December, all these key injuries coming off of you know, thirty five point loss, whatever it was. What do you expect we get on Sunday Night from this Miami Dolphins team?

going to see a dominant Bill's victory. Then that I don't really I don't think there's really any in between. Like you, either the Dolphins are either going to play their best game, maybe their best game under Mike McDaniel period, or they're going to get rapid because it is just it's it's so they're almost on two opposite sides of the spectrum in terms of momentum. At this point of the year. You know, the Dolphins have been it's been a roller coaster December. It's been better than last year.

It's better than last year by default because they want a game. But like it start, you know, it starts with the win, the big win over Washington, and then the loss to Tennessee, and then the big wins over New York in Dallas, and then the loss of Balter it's just been this roller coaster. Meanwhile, the Bills roller coaster ride. It's a cart that's only gone up over the past month. It's only going up. No matter how sloppy they looked against me, New England, no matter how

many scares they have, they keep winning games. They keep winning games. You know, the down a wire gets the Chargers doesn't matter you win. A win is a win. I don't really care how it happened. Win is a win. And then you've got, of course seventeen coming in, and I was just looking up man his numbers over his first eleven games, like I had to refresh the page to make sure, like okay, I'm looking at like the split right, Like this isn't just his numbers versus the AFC.

Three thousand yards passing, thirty one touchdowns, five interceptions, five hundred and seventy rushing yards against five touchdowns, ninety two record, ninety two record. And I believe those two losses came down to the final play of the game, like it's

a it's not a great matchup. It's not a great time to lose your best two pass rushers and Phillips and Chubb, which like when you have guys with that athletic and that physical and that explosive on the end, Like that's a great counter to a guy like Josh Allen because those guys are just as big as him, just as fast as him, Like they can they can contain him in theory. They can contain him in theory theory. It's a tough time to be down Zavi and Howard

as well. I think a lot of what this Dolphins defense does revolves around having those two lockdown guys, those two premiere corners and x and Jalen Ramsey. Uh, And we saw a little bit of what a team is willing to do if one of those Ramsey or Howard is forced to miss time. And so it's on paper, this looks like it could be. It could It could

get ugly on paper. But that's why the game is not played on paper right Like again, like it on the paper, the pages and the matchups, the analytics, they don't take into account the human element of we hate this team. We're tired of losing to this team, and we want to win a damn division title, and we're tired of people thinking that we can't do it despite all these injuries. So it is going to be one

extreme or the other. And I don't know which way I leaning, man, I don't know which way I leaning, because I feel like any week you could say these guys are motivated, these guys are ready to play, like I have no doubt that they're ready to play. I just you know, I would like to see how they respond to when the inevitable punch in the mouth happens. You know, they got hit in the mouth after the no touchdown, the drop touchdown against Baltimore and the wheels

kind of fell off and snowball from there. If they get hit in the mouth, they go down two scores on Sunday. Are they going to respond like they did against Baltimore? Or are they going to respond like they did I think in the playoff game against Buffalo when all of a sudden they route a lot of seventeen on as to points like that game in particular gives me,

I guess. I don't want to say hoax. I don't want to make it sound like like I'm a fan, but like for a Dolphins fan, it should give you hope that they can overcome the loss of critical players because they have almost done it in the past while missing the most critical player you could be missing into a tumbel by lower.

Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. We left off the previous segment there Marcel talking about the I guess the mental side of this game and the ups and the downs, and the previous playing experience with Dolphins and Bills and Josh Allen's success, and a couple of things that you touched on there that I wanted to follow up with you on was I keep thinking about that Jets game, and you know, I get myself into these I tell my friends my wife all the time,

like I'm probably online hashtag online too much because I see these takes that just like, man, it gets to me, like these these narratives and these thoughts, and like, remember after the Titans game, the amount of comments I saw that They're not going to win an game of the rest of the year. It's like, what makes you think that even the Jets game, they were down critical parts they didn't have Tyreek Hill. And then on the final drive of the Dallas game, Wattle goes out and to

a leads the offense down the field. So they've found ways to win, you know, shorthanded. Now you did mention the pass rushers. Obviously, you know Jaln Phillips had a big strip sack in the game last year. That was a big part of Miami being really close in that fourth quarter. We're gonna miss him and Bradley Chubb like you talked about there. But I just think about overcoming those those injuries in the Jets game. I think about the Week four matchup and how that might be instructive.

I guess my question is, let's start with the Week four matchup, because that was a game where Buffalo got whatever they wanted right, and it kind of mirrored the Baltimore game where both offenses went up and down the field and then the Dolphins offense kind of fell off and Buffalo's offense just got better and better. Do you think there's anything instructive from that game that Miami can look at and build upon, or is it a situation where the Bills are saying, this is a team that

we've had a lot of success against. We beat them by twenty eight last time. We're gonna keep that rolling.

maybe Raheem Moster maybe not. Maybe Jalen Ronto maybe not on the opposite side, well obviously, no Chul, no Phillips. Like it's they are different. It's different matchups, Like these are different matchups. No Milano for you know, for Buffalo, No Tredavious White. I think I know he got hurt during that game, but I think it was late, you know, third or fourth quarter of that game. So the different matchups. So I wouldn't necessarily say like because Week four happened,

it's going to happen again in Week eighteen. But I think like there are lessons to be learned from that game. I think like the biggest lesson kind of falls on It falls on Vic Tangel, it falls on Big Vangy all right now, and that's having somebody travel with Stevon Diggs. I don't know. I don't think that. I think it's a mismatch. I think putting Digs on Kohor or Apple is respectfully a mismatch, and Digs proved as much in Week four one hundred and twenty yards and three touchdowns.

I think this is why you go out and get a guy like James Ramsey. Like, if you have a jam And Ramsey but you don't use him to take away your opponent's best player, then what is the point. You can live with Gabriel Davis and Khalil Sekur beating you. You can live with that. It's not gonna be fun, but you can look back at the game plan and say, Okay, you know what these guys stepped up. It is what

it is. It Digs beat you for one hundred and fifty yards or two touchdowns, you're gonna feel like you're gonna feel bad, You're gonna pay, like, why didn't we do anything different? Unless you have your best m best and you're like, Okay, we did what we can do. So I think, you know, that's a big that's a big lesson right now. I think you you travel, you travel Ramsey with with Diggs, you play more Man and you know what if Josh Allen turns in to a runner,

Josh Allen turns into a runner. But I just read off the passing stats, his passing stats during the last segment. He's been he's been a top tier passer. He's across the seventeen game season. He's an MVP if you know, he's only playing the Dolphins based on these numbers. He got to do something a little different, and that was the beauty of I guess the Josh Boyer system, which you know, I kind of disagreed with fundamentally because of it just felt like a fake Madden defense at times.

But that constant pressure of those blitzes, like the forcing him to either run or make a quick decision before he's comfortable, Like every now and then, it would it would trip him up. Every now, it would trip him up. They were hitting to a point over the past two years where you know, it was it was a toss up whether he would have a good game or a terrible game. You know, I didn't think he was particularly good in the win last year. I didn't think he

was particularly good. I think the home game in two thousand, I think my second year.

Miami Dolphins. And every time the Dolphins and Bills get together, it's like you talk about Josh, They're like perfect and has a perfect game or he has one of those you know, valleys of the peaks and valleys game that he can have, but Miami doesn't find a way to capitalize on catching the interceptions. Like I think back to

the twenty twenty twenty twenty game. I think it was when he took a deep shot and Xavier and Howard had to pick in his hands and it fell off of his fingertips and the next player is a touchdown and Miami falls behind and they can't come back and win that game. And then there was one where like Kyle van Noy had a screen pass in his hands and he couldn't hang on and Javon Holland jumps arout last year in the game and couldn't hang on to

the pick. So there's opportunities there that he'll he'll create for you sometimes, but sometimes it's not that way. So I think if it's one of those games and Miami can capitalize on the takeaways, they can make a big push and get a victory in this game. It sounds like you kind of know where you're going. But I'm gonna go ahead and ask you just to put a bowl on the podcast. Marcel, What are you thinking.

to take. You're not gonna like, You're not gonna, you know, bring your B game, bring your C game into Sunday and win against this team right now, it's not going to happen. But to beat Buffalo, you are going to have to play your best game of the season right now. Or maybe if Buffalo plays it's worse than was. You know, you'll see that. You can never rely on other teams being at their worst. Like this is three time braining AFC champion. They've been in games like this before, and

in my I just I did the math earlier. I've covered ten Bills Dolphins games. I've seen the Dolphins win one of those, and yet to see the Dolphins winning game that matters, especially in this capacity. I am not saying you can't. I'm saying that is what it needs to. This is what they need to do in order to win. It needs to be their best game of the season. So you know, you know, my my my head does say Buffalo wins this game. My head does say Buffalo

wins this game. But Miami, it's you know, Miami is right there. They just they're gonna have to lock in. You can't see those mental mistakes. You know, Mike McDaniel is gonna have to call a smart game. They're gonna have to establish the run. You're gonna need to see something from the rookie from Devon Knight, Devon ah Chain. Uh. You know they're gonna have to capitalize on turnovers and

turnover worthy plays whatever that status called. You know, can't drop interceptions, you can't miss you know, if the balls on the ground, can't dive pass it and side pass it like there, it's gonna take a perfect game. They're a plus game. The Dolphins can beat Miami. Anything short of that, I think the Bills win. I guess it is the short way to answer me, you know my long winded answer.

be would get you into the winner circle. And I think, like I almost want to clip this and get up to coach McDaniel and just like have him played at the team meeting, not to like to sparage you, Marcel, but to be like, look, guys, this is like the Dolphins mantra. If you play your best game, then you beat them. And if you beat them now you've come off your best game going into the postseason with home

playoff games like that would be perfect. Like that would be a really good way to go into the playoffs. So it's all out there in front of them. It's the opportunity they've all wanted all year long to talk about, you know, division titles, the first goal of the season. So I think it's gonna be a rallying cry. I think it's gonna be a fun game on Sunday night and can't wait to watch it and hear your takes on it after the fact as well. Marcel Louis Jack

covering your Miami Dolphins for ESPN. His alma mater also pulled off their second win over my alma mater, Arizona, stay over the Cougs in the last six years. I looked it up for you, Marcel, so two and four against the Coogs in the last six years. Congrats on that. Thank you for your time today, sir, and tell them the folks what you're working.

using negative energy to fuel you. You know, learning, Hey, there's a reason why people are saying this, but you still have the power and the opportunity to change their minds and to prove them wrong. So that should be coming out. I think it's on Tuesday, or I think it's on the night. Excited for that to come out, and then you know, obviously the normal game day musings should be dropping this weekend, and we're excited to get to that stadium early. Man, I know, I'm gonna try

to set a record. I'm usually a just in time kind of guy. I'm gonna try to set a record here to get there. You get there in don the park and at a normal parking spot and not you know, driving through Hell.

getting over the hump, all of that and more. That's next Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. Let's actually start here with the quarterback monologue that I wrote up here because we'll get to McDaniel here in a second. But I want to talk about this and it's not far off from what I've been doing really the last couple of Thursday and Fridays here on these monologues in the the huge games.

And it's funny because I'm guilty of this too, but we sure do, collectively as a fan base and as football fans and as humans, I think, become prisoners of the moment, don't we. I mean, the Dallas game was the biggest in the franchise is last two decade history, right, biggest game in McDaniel's career, biggest game in two is career. And the funny part about that is they both executed in the biggest moments of that entire game. That was the biggest game in the franchise history of the last

two decades. But if we lose to Buffalo, does anybody still feel that that was the case? Will you recall that game winning drive that two will put together? Probably not? The same was said of Baltimore. If you beat Buffalo, does anybody still feel that way? I don't think so. What if you lose to Buffalo and then you beat Casey in Baltimore? Probably unlikely, but not impossible. How would you feel about losing this Buffalo game? And I keep

using the legacy game stuff help. When I was getting coffee this morning in the facility, I looked up at one of the TVs in there and they were doing a segment on one of those horrible morning talk shows whose legacy is most on the line for this playoffs, Lebron Numbskin, but two was of course up on that board, and it's just like the same concept I just explained about each individual game, it applies across multiple seasons. I know we're gonna be upset if this year does not

go what we hope it does. But like your perspective is, you'll be right back here again next year. Like, do you really think that Tua and Mike's offense will get worse in year three or year four? What about when you have the same continuity on the defensive staff that you had on offense this year, and you have Jialen Ramsey for a full year where it doesn't take eight years eight weeks to gel. Like, look, if this season

ends in these next two weeks, it'll be devastating. It's gonna be hard to want to even get back into football. It'll be probably hard to watch the playoff games, which is terrible because I love playoff football more than anything else besides my wife and kids, Like it's my favorite thing in the world, especially when Dolphins are playing. But you'll be right back here again next August to watching this team in training camp having these exact same discussions

in December. I guess that's my point. And yah, I know free agents on this team are vast, but there are always creative routes that you can take to get the team back together. You could probably run it back with the exact same roster next year, which, by the way, if Tua gets paid, that's like a fifteen million dollar reduction or relief in year one of that contract. So you get that, you might get retirements, you get June

one cuts, restructures. I'm just saying. What I'm trying to say is there's not five teams right now in the NFL with better futures than Miami because your head coach and your quarterback are aligned. They're both elite. That's all it matters. That's not all that matters. But that's the

biggest part. The biggest part of the equation is that as we have learned over the last twenty years, because what do we have twenty years ago, an elite coaching quarterback right twenty five years ago, and now we have it again, and in between we didn't have it and we didn't go to the playoffs. Ever, it's the biggest part of the game. So with that said, I wanted to look at this because the narrative if we lose Sunday for some and maybe this is the vast minority,

and I'm just seeing the vocal minority. But the narrative will be that Tua caused it. It's Tua's issue. They got to replace to a tongue of Bai low. The quarterback can't win, they got to replace them. I saw that the pick that Patrick Queen had, I saw the take that that was what swung the game. Really, are you sure about that? You're sure about that's why it wasn't the busted coverage for a seventy five yard touchdown on the first play after the offense had just made

it a fourteen thirteen game. Like, think about it. Baltimore got the ball back in the game with three ten to play in the second quarter. If you just hold him to a field goal, there we go into half seventeen thirteen, different game. Or hear me out, hear me out. What if you actually got a stop and then we aren't pushing the ball against the clock, we don't force that throw. Maybe we kick a field goal. I mean that would be a halftime lead sixteen fourteen. That's a

possibility that could have happened on Sunday. But what else should I expect from a community that has actual oxygen breathing human beings, suggesting that Mike McDaniel could be on the hot seat if we lose on Sunday, Like, I'm not gonna entertain that beyond that point. But get out of here, do we? You don't want this stuff? It's terrible. I just wanted to look at some of Tua's our parts, the people who he's being measured against, which in and

of itself should be telling, right, But I digress. The people who he is comparable with his film in his passing numbers, like a Peyton Manning who lost his first three playoff games by a combined total of eighty three to thirty three. The offense averaged eleven points in his first three playoff games, an offense that was breaking records from the moment he got on the field well his

sophomore year. He also lost to the Patriots each of the next two postseasons, and then, in his sixth season, as a one seed, facing a six seeded Steelers team at home coming in with a playoff record of three and five in his career, lost to the last team to make it into the postseason while taking five sacks and came putting less than sixty percent of his passes.

He got his ring in six year seven, which, by the way, he scored fifteen points in one of those games, going fifteen for thirty with a bucks seventy, no touchdowns and two picks. Awful, but he won Drew Brees. He was bounced in his loan playoff game with the Chargers, then made a nice run in six getting a first by and winning a playoff game, but then an eighty three point two pass a rating in the NFC Championship game to fall to one and two career in the postseason.

Then they don't get back to the playoffs for the next two years. Imagine if Tua did that off of this year, if he went no playoffs the next two years, he I don't want to think what the Twitter verse would do to him. But then they won the Super Bowl, so that's a pretty nice feather. But the rest of his career five and seven and a career nine to nine playoff record. What about the guy who actually did replace Drew Brees in San Diego, Philip rivers five and

seven career playoff record. The only year where he won multiple playoff games, his offense posted an average of nineteen points per game. In those games. How about Lamar Jackson, who's one and three in the playoffs. His first playoff loss as a full time starter was in an MVP fourteen to two, record breaking season of an offense. He posts a sixty three a passer rating and a garbage time touchdown in that game, actually rescued that rating from

the fifties. Of course, the year prior, they scored seventeen points in a loss of the Chargers. Then he got his revenge on the Titans in the Wild Car Round the next year in twenty twenty, only to go fourteen of twenty four with one sixty two and a pick in the Divisional round in a loss of the Buffalo Bills, we scored ten points. And he hasn't played a playoff game since that year. And I think we'd all agree he's the best quarterback in the league right now, right

like he is. How about Dak Prescott, He's pretty damn good. Hasn't been to a championship game in his eight year career, but I bet he does it this year and then what's the narrative then? And there's even more. This is after they were written off till for this season after losing to us when they're gonna win the NFC East and probably be the two seed. What about Josh Allen.

He's actually been awesome in the playoffs, but he's four and four and that includes pass the ratings of sixty nine point five, eighty point eight, and sixty eight in three losses three of those four losses. Now, unicorns do exist. Patrick Mahomes is a unicorn. Tom Brady was. Ben Roethlisberger won a Super Bowl right away. Would it be nice to have some early career success as those guys. Of

course it would, That's what we want. But the point of this is to tell you some of the takes you see, maybe the takes that you've had on an emotional state. I've been guilty of it privately. I disowned the team when they fell down twenty one oh at Kansas City in my own head. I didn't say it on Twitter because I'm not gonna change my process that quickly. But maybe you said that. But the idea is that

it is hard, hard to win these big games. That's why all these great quarterbacks, Legends of the Game, Hall of Fame quarterbacks have sub five hundred records in these postseason careers. Right just think about that, think about the

context of that. Let's go ahead and finish up this podcast with some Mike McDaniel audio, and we're gonna play just one SoundBite because there was several injury questions that he answered, and we'll have the injury report for you guys up on Twitter probably by the time you hear

this podcast, quite honestly. And then there was a question I asked about the Pro Bowlers and the pride he takes and having six players qualify for the Pro Bowl, and I thought it was cool he talked about two a year ago people saying that this guy couldn't even finish a seventeen game season. Now he's just starting quarterback for the AFC Pro Bowl team. A couple of undrafted guys, first timers making the Pro Bowl. And you guys know how I feel about how cool to alec Ingold and

Raheem moster stories are. And then with Ramsey and Armstead and tyreew important they are the football team. Obviously good stuff. Find the entire press conference or a media availability on YouTube. Let's go ahead and play this one sound bite though, because this is all I really care about this week. The Buffalo Bill's huge game. Not going to be crying about how the season has not gone the way I wanted to, the last week of the season, really, injuries,

all that stuff. I just want to talk about beating Buffalo. What this team's mindset is. Here's coach on balancing the pressure of these big games, even though it is just another game in kind of terms of football, but it's more than that.

it's because it is a normal football game. But if you take enough intentionality and create pressure and expectations for yourself from the beginning of training camp and approach each and every practice and each and every game with with full ambition, focus and uh, you know, treating every every game as though you treat a playoff game, then all games are the same and you're better burst at big game experiences because you treat You've treated so many games

as big games. So I think this this team based upon what they've done, what they've experienced, how much, uh, how much attention they've received. It's been an attention filled year for for the entire team, with the with the you know, the offense, getting a ton of acclaim early on in the season. You know too, to having expectations that are brought forth when when you're if you win a game by fifty, then to have heartbreaking losses throughout

the season, but continually respond. I think all of those things accumulated all give you the best chance to put your best foot forward in a week eighteen. So I think it's it's focusing on the fact that you've built yourself up to be able to play in this game, and then once the game starts that it's basic football, with playing with your teammates, adhering to a fundamentals and technique, and then playing playing inspired. That's what it takes to

accomplish the goal. And that's what they've been focusing on this week, and I've been reiterating to them every time they open their eyes and look at me.

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