NFL Week 16 - The Pats don't get all the calls

fans want me to do. You're assuming we have fans. I want the the edgy Travis. I want the guy that explained to us what a lawnmower pulling a lawnmower on someone? If you're gonna if you're gonna use that, you gotta use the proper when it's starting up the lawnmower, starting up the lawnmower. So, Travis, can you I know it's hard because this isn't a visual medium, but can you explain what's starting up the lawnmower is on something? Let everything out of these arms about to get wild. Well.

For example, if you were to get into like some kind of fight, you it's it's it's a move where if you get a you know, a guy on the ground and you're holding them down with one arm, and then you're, you know, acting like you're pumping them, you're pummeling with fists over and over, and that's therefore starting up the lawnmower on the get fired up. So that's

a wyoming thing, Wyoming Canada. I got friends, you know, all over and then so don't the next time if you you see somebody that's given you our time back, yo, don't don't make me start up the lawnmower on you. I hope to God that Rogan says that on the next year, you start a law UPower. He's, yeah, forget, it's no longer ground and pound, it's the lawnmower. He's this is the Yeah. Is it like a John Deer or what what kind is? It could be anything. It

could be anything. Yeah, like John Deer is a good that's a good brand. They start on the first one, so it's not really it's gotta be yeah, like the ones my dad would like repair a let's get let's get into the show. Let's get into the show. Let's

get into uh. New England Buffalo Saturday games. So we had games on Saturday, NFL Network in conjunction with Fox as part of the Thursday night package and uh and so Fox produces the game's NFL Network talent except for the last game, where our crew are Pete Matcheska crew with Kevin burkhard and and Charles Davis was on the game. But New England Buffalo. There were actually three great games on Saturday, really really good games and meaningful games. New

England UM Houston. Houston clinched the a f C South, The Patriots clinched the a f C East for the seventy three year in a row, eleven years in a row. And the last game the Niners one and they're in the running. Pretty big, big win for them, beating the Rams down to the wire for the number one seed, you know, the NFC West and the number one seed in the NFC playoffs. But it was the Patriots Bills

game that I want to talk about. And there were a couple of plays just officiating, and I we haven't had many Patriots fans Patriots games on Fox, so I don't get a lot of Patriot hate on Twitter. But since we had the Patriot game and I had to go on the air a couple of times, I got some Patriot hate and Patriots fans. I'm sorry, but for a for a fan base that has had the type of success that this team has had, they are they are very like not no, it was not not nice,

Like why is it? The woe is meal the time with Patriots and you've you've won so much. There were kids in Boston that are that are growing up with Red Sox winning multiple World Series, Patriots winning multiple Super Bowls, that even the the the Celtics one and what two thousand ten? What was that? So Bruins one? And it's too much to keep tracking. They've won a ton of championships.

But anyway, so I got a lot of a lot of Patriots fans about the The officiating was one plame in particular was Julian Edelman, and we were talking about in the studio. He was flagged for offensive past appearance on what the gated a touchdown and it was It's an interesting play because Edelman. Edelman is the number two receiver on on the left side of the formation. They bring a man in motion. They bring a receiver in

motion and that receiver defender goes with him. And typically when teams put a receiver in motion, they're trying to see if if the defense is in man coverage or his own coverage. So if a defender goes with that receiver, then then that's one indication that they're in man or at least that receiver is gonna be is gonna be one on one. And the defender came over. Edelman just you know, runs kind of a little slant pattern, but takes a direct route right at the dB um lowers

his head in a blocking posture. Now there was a collision. He stayed on the ground. They threw the flag. It was beyond the yard. It freed up that receiver. I can't think of the receiver caught the past, but he basically came out in a little a little swing pass and and ran for touchdown and they flagged for offensive pass NS and I thought it was the correct call. And what the officials look for in that instance is they look for the body posture of the receiver. Is

the receiver attempting to run a route? Is he trying to get open? Because again this is not to not to oversimplify things, but receivers are not going to necessarily seek out defenders for contact. When they're running routes. They want to get away from the defender, right, So when they're seeking out that contact, a lot of times that's a rub route, that's a pick route. Um, they're trying to gain an advantage if they're gonna push off a

little bit, so they play into the defender. So their official is going to look for the is the receiver running a route, is he trying to evade that defender or is he or is he seeking out that defender at a blocking posture? And Edelman did make contact in a blocking posture. Another question was is he running the route? Can he protect himself from the defender if the defenders initiating contact, And yes, he can protect himself from impending

contact by the defender. But in my opinion and the official, the calling official that it was Edlman that seeked out the contact. He initiated it, and uh, and I thought it was the correct call. It was interesting how he and we were telling a little He went to the ground, There wasn't there was a collision, no question. He went to the ground and stayed on the ground almost as if he was injured, and then he popped up like

nothing happened. And it almost like a a cynic would say, this is like next level stuff, because coaches they teach these plays, they teach these routes, they teach pick routes, they call them rubb routes. But it was almost as if you know, run, try to create that contact, go down like you're hurt, and that may influence the official that you it was a collision more than you just initiating the contact. Now again not saying that's what happened,

but certainly you could. It's not that far out of the realm of possibility to to take it to the next level. But it kind of backfires because Edelman went down, he stayed on the ground a little bit, came back up, and and he actually had to go in and they

looked at him for potential head injury. And that could have come from the a t C spotter, which is the the independent spot or upstairs that if they see a player who exhibits any indication of a potential head injury, if they stay on the ground for an extended period, if they look off balanced or disoriented, then they're gonna call down and have that that player looked and he did have to go into the tent and get looked at.

He did come back in the game. He was not he was not diagnosed with any kind of a head injury. And they do do that that there's a protocol that takes place in that tent. If he doesn't pass that protocol, they take him to the locker room for more and more comprehensive protocol. So what do you think that conversation was, Like, He's like, I was faking it, guys, I was faking

Come on with Tommy, Tommy, come on, hey, Tommy. We were we were having a little fun with the Patriots fans when because Brady Brady threw Brady went out on like a reverse and threw a great blockdown field and they showed it in the stadium and we were just like imagining what the Patriots fans like, Oh, Mike, did you see Tommy, Tommy to gig get me another Sam Adams pocked the car. It was so it was funny though fans. And then he went on Instagram and posted

how amazing he is that he laid one block. Did he did he do something mother efforts face offense defense specialty. But he's he's that's a tongue in cheek because I think Tom Tom does have a sense of humor, and I think he's got kind of a funny his his his Instagram page is actually pretty funny. And uh and yeah, but I could see him. I could see him. Uh,

he could see him doing that. But again, got a lot of hate from Patriots fans, so joined the join the club m Dallas Lions, I mean Eagles now it's Patriots. Didn't someone call you out until you should be fired from the NFL? Um? I think it was Saturday they did. Uh. Somebody tweeted out that the NFL needs to get their house in order and fire at Team Blandino and hire some competent people. So just three seasons I have My

last season was two thousand sixteen. Um, And and I don't think the league would allow me to be out of officiating and also comment on calls on Fox. Do some fact check before you send a tweet, like I just that should be a rule about tweeting. People are funny, like the d m s are insane, like it's it's literally it's insane, and and It's so hard because I don't want to give the trolls the time of day, but some people are so good at trolling that I

want to. I just like like anyway. So there was another play at the end of the half that had a lot of people talking about a rule, and it was the Bills had the ball they throw deep past near the goal line, ruled a touchdown. There's eight seconds on the clock. The clock stops at the end of the almost near the end of the second quarter. Of the clock stops. Eight seconds on the clock, ruled a touchdown.

Replay stops the game, and the receiver was he was down short of the goal line, so they reverse it to short of the goal line. They reset clock to where it was when he was down, which was at ten seconds. And then by rule, there's a ten second runoff and either team can take a time out to save the ten seconds. And a lot of people up in arms about this rule and they were tweeting at me, like, why is the team penalized because the officials made a mistake.

Now I want you, Travis Joe. I want you as a as a fan who hasn't spent twenty years in officiating, because sometimes I feel like things that people should understand. I don't think I'm a good judge of it because that's that's my life, right, that's my career. And and you know, I don't understand. I wouldn't go into somebody else's profession and pretend to understand something. Um, you know in depth that what they do. So as a as somebody that didn't have that experience, can you explain why

that rule is in place? You don't want to give extra time out like that. That's that's kind of how I understand it, right, Um, you don't want to give You don't want to give a team an extra time out and in order to get different players on the field for the defense or offense. And and I think, alright, I guess kind I guess I have to use my twenty years experience. I answer properly, Travis, you kind of fumbled through fumbled through that, and what do you awful?

It was awful. That's why you're That's why you're the guy here. See Joe, at least can you text your tesla and maybe the tesla would mean the tesla would know, would right, but it has more experience than you. Yeah, exactly, it does. Test Bryan, Right, that's the name of your tesla. It right, I got it. I got it? Um So okay. So the bottom line is and let's walk through it.

I'll walk through it with you, guys. If the ruling on the field, the ruling on the field was a touchdown, so what does that ruling do to the game cloth stop? Clock stops. If the ruling on the field was down short of the goal line, what would the game clock do? It would still be running, it would still be going right. So if they ruled touchdown and then they reverse to short, would the offense have been able to get a snap off with whatever time was remaining on the clock when

the play was ruled over? No? Probably not right. It's what Travis said. They essentially get a free time out, not even a free time out, but they also could potentially get another snap that they weren't entitled to think about. This. This was a this was a deep pass that was ruled a catch for touchdown. There's eight seconds on the game clock. If they ruled down in the field of play, Buffalo now has eight seconds to run up, get set

and either spike it or run a play. And chances are when it was like a forty fifty yard pass, They're not going to have enough time to do that. So the rule is in place to prevent a team from getting a snap that they would not have been entitled to. So in that instance, right, you run tense seconds and if they have a time out they can take it. Because think about if the call in the field is correct initially down in the field of play,

what is Buffalo gonna do. They're gonna run up there and try to spike, or they have a time out, they're gonna take a time out. So you you say, we're gonna run ten seconds, which is the standard, And a lot of people were asking, well, you know, if it's a four yard pass, it could be five seconds. If it's a twenty yard pass, it could be eight seconds. Why because you just you can't say for sure how many seconds it's gonna take. You have to have a standard.

Were you and were you in on the meetings when this rule became. So this rule came, this rule went in the book in two thousand ten. It there was there was one play that stood out in two thousand nine. It was a play at the end of the half. It was the Saints and Dolphins and where where I believe it was the Saints who are on offense, that got another snap when they really shouldn't have. The clocks

should have run out. And so the committee looked at it and they put this ten second runoff rule in And now the ten second runoff rule though, has been in place for many years as it results a all start inside of two minutes. And that's again, the theory behind that is clock is running offenses behind. They're trying to save time. If you allow them to false start and stop the clock without a without a clock penalty, they gain an advantage, right, but they'll take they'll give

up the yardage for the time. They'll say, hey, we're gonna foul, we're gonna false start. We'll take the five yards, but there's four seconds on the game clock. We want the game clock to stop. That's why. Yeah, again, try to stop with the substitutions. It's really that's not the intent of the rule. Just let it go, Please let it go. I understand I don't want to get to frisky with you because I don't want you to pull a law more on the start a lot, But it's

not about substitutions. It's about plays and conserving time. And that's why the ten second runoff was in place. And the committee when they put this in, they said the minimum amount of time it would take for the offense to get lined up set would be ten seconds. Now we know it could be less in some situations, but you have to have a standard. The standard is ten seconds.

That why the rules rules in place, and you're not penalizing. Look, you're not penalizing the offense because the officials made a mistake. If you didn't have this rule, you'd be penalizing the defense because you'd be saying, we're giving the offense another snap that they wouldn't wouldn't be entitled to or they would have been entitled to with less time on the clock. And that that's where the advantage disadvantage really takes place.

I feel like I remember one the first season you came into Fox that three years ago and it was a Detroit play and you and you and Pereira like looked at each other and got so excited that it was like he was jealous that you gotta go on the air to talk about this. He was, He's like eight years. I waited eight years for this year, so I have the craziest memory. I I remember a lot of plays and but that that was. It was Atlanta

and it was Detroit. The lines were out of time outs, Golden Tate ruled a touchdown, replay comes in, stops it. Walt Coleman was the referee, replay stops it rules short. Chris Myers was on the game, and we're gonna talk about christ Myers in the second. So there was Chris Myers and Darryl Johnston and so they go to me and I see Tate is short, and I explain, I go, this is this is the rule. Now Tate is short. We're inside of two minutes. It's a running clock. They're

gonna run ten seconds. The Lions are out of time outs, and the game is going to end. And Chris Myers was like, are you sure about that? And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm sure. That was Travis is Christmas. And I was like, yeah, oh I'm sure. And then Wal Coleman comes out makes the announcement and it was and Lions fans and Lion fans haven't haven't liked me since the two thousand the playoff game. No, not even Ava Johnson wasn't me, Okay, I was, I was in a bar and Herrosa Beach

during Calvin Johnson. This was this was the flag pick up in the cap. There was seven days in my career that defined it was the Lions Cowboys flag pick up for the d P. I right. Seven days later, the des play happens. Okay, that's it. Those are two most controversial calls that that I've been a part of. Lions fans haven't liked me since that one. This one certainly did not endear me to Lions fans because I I basically told them that, look, your team's gonna lose.

Don't worry about what the referee is gonna say. This is gonna happen. And they lost, and uh again, don't blame Dean, guys, don't blame Dean. But Chris Myers did say on the game on Sunday, we're doing the the Cardinals um Seahawks game, and Chris Myers did. I went on the air and did a hit and Chris Myers says, Okay, go, you know, go back to watching your Hallmark movies, so which I appreciated because I am a big Hallmark fan. Um we all know that. And uh yeah, So anyway,

let's let's move on carolinea, Indianapolis. You were Travis. You were a little bit like you were shaking up, like you were a little bit worried. Vernon Butler um on Carolina. He had a moment, lawnmar moment there were he lost it. He there's the play happens. He grabs the offensive lineman's face mask, rips him to the ground, and then eight who's eighty four on the colts That poor guy looking up. That poor guy's not even he's like just along for

the ride. He ends up getting knocked over. He's laying on the ground. Butler was locked up with the offensive lineman, and Butler just punches him right in the face, like just laying on the ground, punches him in the face. Jacky Jack Doyle like Jack Doyle's like, you know, Jack Doyle was the Jack Doyle was the one that poor Jack Doyle. Jack Doyle was the one that that burke perfect hit to get suspended for the year. Yeah, yeah, Jack Doyle, he must he must have a mouth on

him out there. Jack Toole didn't do anything. He was just the perfect play. He caught it. He got up, he got hit in the head. This one he just fell on the ground. You're making Jack doil trouble I don't know. I'm just saying that multiple incidences now, Jack total troublemaker, the line stepper. Anyway, he gets punched in the face. They throw the flag, and the officials on the field, I don't believe they were going to eject. New York got involved. They stopped the game and New

York can get involved. Flag is thrown and if it raises to the level of of an ejection, they can eject from New York. And then it was look, punch um clearly out of bounds. That was not something that you want to see in the game. And they did a good job ejecting Butler. But you were mentioning. I mean he was. Travels was like, he's scaring me, like he did I He was like, look at him, He's like, he's got this wild look in his eyes. Why why

is like, why is he so aggressive? It's an aggressive game. Travis, Oh, I never understood why someone punches someone who has a helmet on. It was then. I always think back to my brother when he says, oh, you know, I thought they threw the flag. You know, when they throw the flag for that penalty for hitting someone too hard. Little whistle, you're gonna make somebody happy with the whistle. Um And then uh, last play before we take a break, Washington Giants.

What a what a game for for We had two games that it dealt teams that are gonna have be in the top four five in the draft. It was Giants Washingtons both thirty five thirty five at the end of regulation that go to overtime and and and here, honestly though, and this is serious, like we're kind of joking about it today, but this is series. What what this illustrates is when they talk about tanking, there's no tanking.

There's no there's no tanking in the NFL. When you watch those games and those teams, and that's this is serious. You're not gonna go and try to get the number one pick all year or get you know, being in position to draft a player two, three, four, And then Week sixteen, these teams were and I don't care about you know, we talked about the n b A and

the NBA. Look, it's been more you know you've had You've had Mark Cuban say that, yeah, you know there's tanking in the NBA, and but in the NFL, there is no tanking. You watched four teams go into overtime, and seriously, like you make a case the Giants played their way. That win takes them out of the number

two pick. And when you have when you have Joe Burrow as the consensus number one and Chase Young as the consensus number two and you're playing like that, like, so, don't tell me that there's tank king in the NFL. When you have the Dolphins that people were accusing them of tanking and doing all these things. Asked Brian Flores and those players on that roster, they played their hearts out today, won that game, and uh and again, and

those wins impact draft position. There's no guaranteed money, no guarantee for the players, so they have to play hard. There's no guarantee they're gonna be on the roster. There's no guarantee even if coach it's in his first year, is gonna be back next year. So there's no tanking. It's just there's too much on the line, exactly. And and then but the play from that game from the

Giants Washington game was which was interesting. It was late in the game and it was the game tying touchdown, you know, before the extra point, and it was case Keenum who scrambled door for the goal line and got hit. Ball came out recovered in the end zone by West Martin, one of the offensive lineman rule. The touchdown went to review. We really didn't have a great look down the line. I thought, if you had to, if I had to guess he was short, I think he was short. But

you never had to look down the line. But it's interesting because outside of two minutes or first second, third down. Outside two minutes, it's a touchdown either way, whether whether he broke the plane of the goal line or not, because two minute fumble rule doesn't apply inside two minutes. On fourth down, only the fumbling player can recover it in advance of the fumbling spot, so you can't advance it. And so had it been reversed, it would have Washington

would have kept them all. That's why that recovery is so important in the end zone. But it would have come back to the spot of the fumble, which if they determined it short, wherever that spot, where wherever that spot was, And that goes back and we had a fun moment on the air with Tom Brenneman where I mentioned the Holy Roller and he was being a little bit sarcastic, and I said, you know, this goes back to the Holy Roller plane. He said, yeah, I walk

us through the Holy Roller. You were there in that seat and I said, no, I wasn't. I think I'm I don't know. I think it was like five where the Holy Roller happened, but it was, uh you know that goes back San Diego Chargers, Oakland Raiders, and uh, you know, I play Kenny Stabler. I believe fumbled the ball. It got knocked and muffed and into the end zone. The Raiders recovered it for a touchdown and won the game.

And I just remember the San Diego Chicken. If you watch the highlights, the San Diego Chicken, like passing out September. That was. That was three days before my seventh birthday. Dean was not there. I was twenty three days old. Days day. You you woke up, you took a ship and yourself. You cried hello, hello baba. Al Right, on that note, let's take a break. When we come back, we're gonna talk about a textas change, text exchange I

had with Sean Payton. What do officials do during the week, and and what communication happened between clubs and official Snapstone PEP calls. All right, we're back when good calls. And I just wanted I actually wanted to do a little breakdown. We're we're going, we're wrapping up Week sixteen. I just want to talk some statistics as we head into the

end of the regular season. And obviously, you know, the Competition Committee looks at all of these statistics and and a lot of those stats and trends and things that they look at that those drive the conversation for rules changes. And obviously there could be things that happened in the postseason allah last year, the NFC Championship game, And and that leads me to the subject of past inference review.

And I don't want to get you know, we've talked about this all year, but just to review, going into Week sixteen, we had there were there were ninety four total reviews and twenty one reversals. Okay, so two four games reversals. That's one reversal every ten games. And with the amount of controversy and angst and conversation of surrounding this rule, do we think that one reversal in every

ten games is worth it, I don't think so. I hate the rule and what I think and I would agree, and I think this is this is it has played out where the unintended consequences, We've seen them play out before our very eyes. And it's a very subjective call. But what what does give me pause is the league has been There have been very few times where league passes, the league has passed a rule for one year and that rule has not been ended or or passed permanently.

Very rarely does a rule get completely taken off the books, even after one year, And so that does give me pause. And I do think we'll have to see how the playoffs and the postseason plays out. But I think we have seen the growing pains with this rule. You know, weeks so far, through weeks sixteen, there wasn't much controversial. There were a couple of calls. I thought, not not not thrown, no flag thrown on the field, challenged, no,

no replay, replay did not create the foul properly. But again, when you talk about just the conversation, this has been such a hot topic, and when you're talking about one reversal in every ten games, I just don't know if it's worth it at this point. But that said, if there's a big play in the play in the postseason and and we have an overturn and it's the right call, then I think the league will look at it and

say that that, uh, you know, it worked. I certainly think you can't say it's a success at the point, but remains to be seen. I look at I look at statistics and just just a quick overview of where we are statistically, and these are all through week fifteen. Penalties per game sixteen point seven per game, which is up from last year, but not significantly. And we saw that number well over eighteen earlier in the year. It started to come down and that typically happens later in

the year. And uh, and so sixteen point seven, that's not a bad number. You want to be in that fifteen sixteen range. That seems to be a healthy number and historically where it's been. So from that standpoint, I think I think we're in a good place. You look at game time. Game time is actually up three hours, six minutes and fifty seconds. What's interesting about that is it's the first season since since two thousand and fifteen where game time has actually gone up. And this is

a big deal for the league. The league is looking at ways too. They want to reduce downtime. They want to and they hope with the reduction of the downtime that overall game length lessons it becomes it becomes shorter UM. And obviously it went the wrong way this year. Now there's a variety of factors. It's tough. You know, you talk about number of incomplete passes, penalties, replay reviews, all of these things lead to game time UM and impact

the game time. But three or six fifty it's not a it's not an awful number, but it is up um almost a minute from where it was last year. And you look at number of plays, and plays drive everything. Plays drive everything. And I can't say this enough. That's what the NFL is providing its fans plays football. Where one four point three through fifteen weeks, that's a low number. Okay, that's a low number when you look at number of

plays on part with where it was last year. But when you look at when you look at two thousands, seventeen hundred fifty five, two six hundred fifty six, two thousand, fifteen, almost a hundred, almost hundred fifty eight. So we have lost plays in the game. So plays have gone down, game time has gone up. That's not the recipe. That's not that's gonna end up. You're not gonna get a good meal with that recipe. You want you want plays to be up. You want game time to be you know, down.

You don't want to have the games too long. You also want scoring to be up. Scoring is in a good place where at forty five point five UM points per game, which is a good number, was not as high as last year, and last year I think was the second highest scoring season of all time. But forty five is a good number. But average margin of victory is actually up eleven point six eight margin of victory. And when you look at last year at this time ten point eight eight UM, you go back to two

thousand sixteen under ten nine point nine three. When you can get I mean ideally, when you have a margin of victory, what do you want? What do you want is an n You want close games. You want one score games on cosion one score games. So if you can get the close as close as you can get to eight as possible, No, they're always gonna be blowouts. They're gonna be blowouts. It happens. But if you can get that number the closer to eight, that means that

we've got close games. And then if all looks at that, they track games decided by three points or less, games decided by seven points of less, games decided by eight points or less, they look at that those are one possession games. That's what we saw. We saw three games on Saturday that we're down to the wire. Those were fun games to watch. Forty seven to ten is not a fun game to watch. I don't get it. How is game time up but players are down? That doesn't

really compute to me as just an average fan. It doesn't compute until when you think about game time and look at and and so what the league. How the league tracks game time. They track things like incomplete passes. They look at turnovers, right, because what are things that stopped the clock? Incomplete pass turnovers, penalties, penalties, replay reviews. They look at out of bounds plays, kay when a runner goes out of bounds, clock stops, time outs, TV

time outs, all of these things. Now, TV timeouts don't change. There's there's a number. There's there's a number of TV time outs per game that that are set, but there's sixteen breaks during the game. But the other things are all variables, right, We don't know how many penalties there are gonna be in the game. We don't know how many turnovers. We don't know how any touchdowns, we don't

know how many incomplete passes. So when you look at this year compared to last year, right, incomplete passes are up, turnovers slightly up, out of bounds place slightly downy you look at team time outs, what how many team time outs do you think, on average are taken during a game? On average, stack the team time outs per team four and a half, I'd say five. I mean they're gonna

use most of them out, I would imagine. So so when you have and and looking at the numbers, it's it's oh, usually it's probably right around five per game. And but you have you have full time outs, and you have and you have five point one and and there's thirty second time outs. But team time outs, that's important. And the other thing that we haven't mentioned, right, what else? What else stops the game clock in a game? Things

that we haven't mentioned. Think about watching a game, something happens, clock stops injuries, injuries exactly, so, and that's something you can't control, right, you can't control the number of injuries untill they try with the penal teas of people. Oh that's the penalty of the guy got hit, got hit too hard? Shout out, Oh they flagged them. You know that penalty they call when the guy got hit to it.

So these are all things that the league looks at in terms of time outs, clock stoppages, and again it's it's all a formula. And what you want is you want you want a hundred and fifty five plays per game. That's that's a good number between a hundred hundred fifty six plays per game. Passing yards is important, Okay, passing yards is another number. You need a healthy passing game because people don't want to watch three you know, three yards a cloud of dust. They want you need a

healthy passing game. Penalties are important to the game. They make sure the game is played fairly and safely. And then points are important. So interesting in terms of where we are with the statistics, I'm just gonna throw this out there as a guy who did not work for the NFL, I call bs on that they want the game time to be shorter because longer games, more sponsorships, more revenue. It's a business. But I know we've already argued this, even though we've seen those those numbers of

game the game time go down. It's like you see in game ads now, so let's think it doesn't. They'll add they'll find a way there. There's there's all those TV deals, the network deals. There's there's a limited number of breaks that you can take during the game, right and and those breaks are timed, and so it's up to the network to fill those brakes and with advertisers

and all of that. But the league does want when you look at how people how do people watch in in nineteen five, how are people how are the majority of people watching NFL games at home on their TV at home? Right in two thousand nineteen, how many people are sitting at home watching games compared to more or less? But I would think similar, no bars, And if you're still but you're watching, you're watching red Zone, you're watching on your your smartphone, you're watching on you you have

access to more games. I remember growing up I was I grew up in New York. I watched the Jets and the Giants. Those are the two games that were on. And then if I was lucky enough to stay up, I watched Monday Night Football. That was it. Now you can go on red Zone, you can see all the scoring plays. I can go on NFL Game Pass, I can watch any game any market, anywhere. And so people are watching differently than they were and they were. Also

the attention span. There's so much more out there, there's so much more content out there, and the attention span is not as great. And so again, you we're all gonna watch a fifty you know, the rams cheese from last year. Everybody's gonna watch if it's three and a half hours, they don't care. Right, how many of those college games do we sit there in the studio and it's like, Jesus, when is this game going to end? It's six, it's Oklahoma's beating somebody sixty seven to twelve.

I'd love to see what the average margin of victory in college it is. I feel like there's so many blowouts, well way way bigger. The marginal victory in college is bigger. But again, you have I think I think you have the nonconference games, you have conference games. It's all it's a little bit different, but again it's just interesting and and just shifting gears before we could go down that

rabbit hole all night. But um, it wasn't interesting. I did we we have looked at a play and this kind of brought up the next topic we had the play. When was it? It was the Saints. It was last week, right, the fake Yes, it was a fake punt last week, fake punt. The Saints ran a fake punt the Niners Saints game. They were in a fake punt. No, it was actually two weeks ago because because the Saints played Monday night, priest broke all the records, so it's two

weeks ago, forty nine together. Saints they ran a fake punt potential pass inference, but it was on the widest man the formation can have passed inference. The Saints wanted holding, so Sean Sean Payne. I was texting with him after the game and and he was, you know, he was saying, you know, I I told him, look, hey, it's hard because it probably was holding, but it's hard for that official to transition from punt to pass and you're gonna

look at it differently. You're looking at that play differently. If it's a if it's a corner blocking a gunner versus a corner covering a receiver, and he made the comedy said, I wish I would have given it to the officials before the game, because then they would And that's a great comment for him to make, because whenever you're gonna run something like that, you always want to make sure that the officials know because they're prepared for it.

They're prepared for the potential because if that official had been prepared for that and known that they could possibly run a fair, then in in in their mind, they're gonna quickly transition from punt to pass and more likely to throw the flag for holding. I think we got on that topic when we had those two um lineman report eligible for the Bills on Saturday night, because I was coach, Do you tell the referees before the game, like, Hey,

we're gonna run something here. It's gonna be a little bit wacky, but just want you guys to be informed that this is going And that's when most teams will do that. They'll let because the last thing you want is to have a team try something different and have it be legal, but it catches the officials off guard and they flag it for you know, they just because they get caught off guards. So so if you're gonna run like that's not you know, having eligible ineligible players

report is eligible is not necessarily a trick play. Um. That was one where they had seventy three on the end of the line. He reported, seventy one was on the other end of the line. He did report, and then they basically ran a tackle eligible seventy three caught a touchdown pass. So that that's more. You know, that's just procedure. You have to make sure your report, you go to the referee, the referee makes the announcement. They

pointed out to the defense. But if you're gonna run something a trick play, a fake, you always want to make sure. You know. Coaches would call me, you know, I remember I had special teams. Coaches um call me all the time, and I I had that I had the league. After my first season, I had them put I asked they could put a white board in my office on the wall because I had to diagram stuff because coaches would would talk to me on the phone and I would diagram it while I was talking to them.

So it would give me a better understanding of what they were actually trying to do. So I had a white board on my wall and I would talk to the special teams coach from the Colts or the Chiefs, and I would say, Okay, what do you got and he would walk me through what he was doing. I would draw it up and then I'd have a better understanding and I would say, yeah, you know what, that's legal, or you know what, you gotta do this. This is

illegal the way you're explaining it to me. But if you do this, if you move this guy up on the line, then it would be legal. And then those those are great. Those are fun conversations to have. And uh because the special teams coaches especially, they're very creative and they they do spend a lot of time just trying. You know, we saw, um, we saw a great trick, a great fake punt play today. What game was and

they dropped the past. I think it was New Yorleans it was the Saints and dim But loving this guy, Darren Is. He's one of the best special teams coaches in the in the league. He has been. He was with Miami for a long time and they ran a great fake, a great fake and the kid just dropped it and it would have been a first down and uh. And so those are the types of things that you want to be prepared for because as an official, you don't want to make a you know, you don't want

to flag something because you're just caught off guard. Can he go up to him just before the play? Hey, just a heads up? Typically you don't want to take then you don't want to tip off. You don't want to tip off the other team too, because the more um, you know, and I think it was it was Urban Meyer.

It was it was coach Urban who's with us at Fox, you know, on the CFB broadcast, Um that he said that he would have a guy on his staff watched the other team's head coach and if they knew, they knew if that head coach was involved in special teams or not, and if that head coach was typically not involved in special teams, and that head coach for some reason before kickoff was in the huddle. That was a tip off that wait a minute, they might be they

might have something here. So that's the type of thing that that that's next level stuff, and that's coach Meyer.

So you don't want to you don't want to tip off the other team, but you do want to make sure whether it's during the week, and you let the head of officiating note or before the game, two officials from each crew, from the crew go to each locker room before the game ninety minutes before kickoff, and they talked to the head coach and they asked him if you have anything, you got anything for us, you got

any questions, you got any trick plays. Then they'll come back the crew that the two guys or two two officials will come back to the locker room and they'll go through it and they actually they'll make everyone because there's a locker room attendant. There may be other people in that locker room. When they go through what the teams have given them, they make everybody leave the locker room who's not who's not a game official, and they go through it because they don't want somebody a locker

room attendant going hey, guess what you know? And uh, but it's really interesting, you know we talked about that what happened during the during the week. What do officials do during the week. Um, you know they're not. Everybody says, well, they should be full time. They are for all intensive purposes they are. They don't just show up on Sunday, work the game and leave. They work their game. They're

in there. They're in the league city. The day before, they have a pregame meeting that lasts most of the day. They go through, they go through a scouting report on each team. They look at tape on each team. They look at offense, defense, special teams. They go through what they like to do in different situations. Here's what they like to do in in in short yardage situations. Here's what they like to do in goal line. Here's what they do on special teams. They go through all of that. Right,

they'll watch a video that the league puts together. They'll go through what they have to go through for their upcoming game. They work the game, they go immediately. They leave the game with with the TV copy of the game on a little thumb drive. Okay, so their watch seen that game on the way home. On the plane. Right home, they're watching the game, they're making notes. They get the coaches copy, which is the sideline and ends on. They get that on Monday. Now they're breaking down the film.

Most crews will have a conference call on Tuesday, going through their game. They do an evaluation of their entire game. So on Tuesday they have that call. That call could take hours. On Wednesday, they get a report from the League office. The League office goes through the game, evaluates every play of every game, gives them a report. That's where their grades are. Those grades accumulate throughout the season. Those grades matter. That's how you get postseason assignments. That's

how you keep your job or lose your job. That's on Wednesday. Thursday, the tapes come out from the league. There's a training tape, there's position tapes, umpire, referee, line of scrimmage, downfield. They have all those videos. They're going through those. There's communication throughout the week. On Friday, typically a slow day. Friday is a slow day in the NFL for the most part. Saturday is a travel day. They get to the stay, they get to the city,

they have the pregame. It starts all over again. They may work. They may work Thursday Thursday night. So now they got to leave Wednesday, and so they are as full time. I guarantee you officials game officials. NFL game officials spend more time at their craft than a lot of people do. That only have one job. I'm telling you that's it's also fascinating. And how much then is the head of officiating does that person have with the cruise Do they only come to them as if they

have questions or or a near role? How much did you talk with them throughout the week? Well? You you you will. If you have a specific issue that you need, I might have. You know, I would talk to a referee right after a game if there was a specific issue. UM, you don't like it's impossible to talk to every official, UM even seventeen referees. Your week is very busy as the head of officials, you're your Monday and tuesdays spent

talking to coaches and dealing with club issues. But if there's something significant, you'll talk to that referee or that specific official right after the game. If there's something you need to go through that that is less time sensitive, you'll do it during the week. Every crew gets that that training tape, they all get their evaluation report. The evaluation report is is there? We would tell our supervisors

who are doing that. Every opportunity you get to teach, teach, I don't care if there's nothing happened on that play if you see somebody in good position, bad position, if they have good mechanics, bad mechanics, anything that they can improve upon, any opportunity to teach, teach, That's what we

want to do, and it's an exhaustive process. We would spend all day Wednesday looking at every call from every game, and we'd look at all the past interferences in a row so you can compare and contrast, so you can be consistent. So you could say, rather than look at the game and say, Okay, we're gonna look at all the calls from the Chiefs Bears game and you might look at a hold and then illegal formation, we look

at put them all together. I want to look at all the offensive holding back to back to back to back so we can compare. Hey, remember that one we looked at in the Chiefs game that was similar to this one. We have to make sure that we evaluate it the same way. So the officials get a consistent message and you go through that. There's three hundred to four hundred plays a week that you're looking at to give feedback to the officials and make sure that they're

they're on the same page. That messaging from the League office is so critical, and then the officials that's how you coach them up. Then the officials have to go out and execute, and it is it is hard. You watch plays, we watch it all the time. You see a spot and you watch it one time boom and you go, wow, he looks like he made it, and the official rules I'm short and you see the replay and he's six inches short, and you how do you make it? How do you do that? That's crazy? Good job.

Every now and again, I think they do a great job. And I'm I'm always so surprised how quickly you can see it on TV. And it's changed the way I watch football as a football fan. And and I know Joe he's the same way. Well, we'll look at these things and go he's down and and we we try to do our best to not put an opinion on it when we're in the studio because we just want to know what the fact is. What was it call in the field. But like the way we can just

see it now, it's learning from you. It's amazing. Do you know how happy? I know? I'm not. You guys know, I'm not for the listeners. I'm not a touchy feeling guy, I don't give a lot of them like, I'm like, do your job. He's supposed to do your job. But do you know how much happiness it brings me when I hear one of you guys like like, I don't give Joe a lot of credit, but he'll point out like he'll point out a foul and I say, that looks like a block in the back. I'm forty two,

and that's what it is. And that makes me so happy when you guys, because I've been looking at the game that way since ye three years. Better be good at it or I should quit. And a lot of people will say, oh, but anyway, but when that makes me so happier, when you when you reference a rule or it does and and to see your the growth that you guys have made is it really makes it. It makes it all worthwhile. It's fun. It's fun. You

definitely we definitely see the game a little differently. So all right, well when we come back, we're gonna talk about some stuff that happened in the Cube Brandon Blandino and uh and we gonna talk about Travis's fashion tips from y Homing from the y Oh next good call. Hey, We're back on good calls, and as always, we spend a lot of time in the cube. Fox Sports at the studio. Had a nice moment on Sunday with Michael Strain. I felt like that was he and I have have

really I feel like we started a bond. He came in early in the morning and he just wished us like a good morning, like wished to the good day. He usually comes in there trying to make some point that he's better than you, Dean, and he's always saying, how oh, you gotta take care of these guys. I come in here bringing these cookies, which he does. He brings in a cookie tray of cookies. I don't know if he pays for them or where they come from, but he brought him in. They come from his assistant.

Obviously he's not driving down the but today he came in and he extended the olive branch as he said, and he did the branch. It was nice. I got so friendly, I got a little of it was touching. No, he's a pretty cool dude. He know, he's great. He's good dude. Um all right, But so we saw there was somebody on the We still don't know who that was.

There was somebody on the Seattle sideline in the Seattle game in Seattle, and I don't know if he's an entertainer, I don't know what, but he had he had like a Fannie pack. And one of the guys in the well and but Phil said it was that was a gator. It was gator skin. Yeah. One of the guys joked,

that's that's gator skin. And so I asked Travis, I said, Travis, um and I'll ask you now, okay, if there was if that was like a thing in Wyoming in the yoh yeah, if that was the thing in Wyoming, And all of a sudden they're like, oh, the fannie back, it's you know, this is a big thing. We want to wear them. What animal skin would be like the best? Which one? Like what would be the easiest, the easiest, get deer? Okay, but that's not sexy, Like it's not

kind of like one of the mills. So I think you see a lot of like elk bags, elk leather, and you probably see a lot of bear skin. If you can get a bear skin bag, and is that that would be like a thing in Wyoming, Like maybe you got the you got the new elks. You got to end what will we call it? Joe? You're the fashion guy. Yeah, Joe comes in. Joe wears like a fashion guy on made fun of for a day, but pants because you take risks with your fast. Joe's word

because he's he's gone. He wears, he wears tight tight pants, and he's word because what seems to be on trend now and what's hitting the runways? And we know this because Scott, who we worked with, was at like a Nike like a sneaker thing and all these like cool hip people were wearing baggy pants and then we he Scott said, the runways this fall, it was all baggy pants. And Joe is very upset because he has invested in

a lot of tight pants fitting. What are you gonna do, Joe, I'm gonna stick with the I have big legs, Dean, He's got to show off his thunder thighs. That's how it works, all right. So big pants is sloppy in my opinion, Speaking of tight pants, we the other thing I wanna Travis made. Travis has deemed Joe are our our douchest friend, and you he's the but he said that you're our douche. You're you're of all the people that we hang out with, you're the douche ist, but

you're our douche. So you're a lovable douche. How do you how do we come how do we know what our douche tendencies? How do you know someone's a douche? So we have to have a douche test, the douche test. Yeah, so what so what are so let's come up with some questions for the douche test. Let's ask Joe and

let's see if we can write. So Joe, Joe always talking about how people are douches, and and then I just said flat out It's like, Joe, I'm gonna have to break it to you, like you're you're the douchest guy, I know, not not even in the group, the douches guy, I know. Are we gonna have to label this episode explicit because we're using the word sounds like a bad whatever. Okay, So anyway, so when when come we see the DA should have went d bag whatever? Okay, So so you're

the you're the douche ist person that Travis knows. Okay, now, but that's not because he doesn't run and douche circles, so she'll get out. It's not that bad. Like that's what if he was like if he was like hanging out in like nightclubs and stuff and do and then I'd be like, damn, you're a douche. But you're like you're like you know, I'm just gonna tell you that in the in the outline here, you spelled douche wrong, so that Travis, I was gonna say that glad you

brought that up because Travis spelled it wrong. He doesn't even he's so unde or just bad at spelling. I'm the least person, definitely the least. I don't know if I should take that as a comment, but then he got called out to you guys don't know. Back in the day, I was doing the law more. I will say that I was hooking up with chicks right before I was married. I was married. I was little douche. You've definitely I will say that I was in the restroom before we started recording, and my hair is a

little douche. Your hair was definitely today. I was gonna say your your hair is definitely. It's it's not what Joe have you or how do you currently or have you ever owned and ed Hardy T shirt? Negative? I haven't either. I think no, you we know, we know you're not. We know you're gonna answer a note to these questions. Okay, have you do you currently or own or have you ever owned a tap out T shirt? I have not. I did own a cop shirt though Chuck Lidles. I was a big fan of his. Well

we we love Chuck Um. Have you ever worn or owned a pair of True Religion jeans? I have not? Diesel for life? Okay, well, okay, that was gonna be my next time. So okay, have you have her owned or currently own or worn a Von Dutch hat shirt? Anything? Here's the thing about You're going back years and I want like I was very broke in the days that that stuff was cool. I I couldn't afford that stuff, So no, I didn't. If you could have afforded you,

absolutely I would. What was there? Was another one? That do you own or have you owned a pink polo? I've owned plenty of you. I don't pop collars, but I love pink and lavender. You guysn't seen me in both colors and white. I like white shirts. I wore a white shirt yesterday to the studio. I don't think that's I think like a white sweater, which I'm actually wearing. You are right now, all right, good, it's it's not douchey. It's just like not. You don't see a lot of

dudes wearing white sweaters knitted. No, you're right, you're right, Um, all right, Joe, You're still you're you're pretty douche. You got a little bit of douche and have a little bit so completely you're fashion forward, You're you're definitely there's a guido for many years. So I saw you kind of give the lady, one of the girls at the studio a little bit of heat because she touched your hair one time. No, I didn't give her heat. Will you wait until she left. I would never do that.

I would never touch I would never do that to anybody. I'm sure you were upset. I was upset she touched my hair. Yeah, he's gotta go on camera, he's gotta look good. No, but I would never do that to the person. I understand that. But you were upset about someone touching your hair. That's I've said this before. I not not not knock on wood, but not an illness that would kill me. But I deal with like a lifetime thing, like some kind of affliction over being walled.

I just would I'd like if I've like had like club foot over being like they're just what is it for hims? Which get them as a sponsor for him? Well, but trying Murray's murason for hims. I think it is the hair again, when you grow up in Long Island and you grew up as you know with Guido, Tendency's hair is very import all right. So your your borderline, dou she too, So welcome to the club. Anybody trying to be something you're not. That to me is douch.

That is the most Travis thing that I've heard. All that guy yourself. If you want to roller blade and we're cut off, then I'm sure let's go for it. If that's your thing, come on, let's get our skateboards and go. All right, Brandon Blandino, all right, let's do this. I got kind of bad. Oh, this is this is good. This is a good one. How long after movies were invented was the first porn? Damn? This this is what you think of on a Wednesday? After Yes, yes, yes,

So I was thinking about this. It was like, so the first motion picture, I don't know, we'd have to google it. When the first motion picture? What were the first motion pictures? Like those black Charlie Chaplain type in early Ado. Just like so that happens, and they're like, they're like, this is amazing. Like everybody's like they're sitting there, They're like, they're in the room. We've created moving pictures.

Pictures werena have movies. We're we're in the movies. Everybody's around there there at their twenty century Fox or MGM Grant and they're sitting there going, this is this is going to change the world. We're gonna be this is gonna unbelievable. And then and then there's one guy in the room going, hey, guys, I got an idea. I got an idea. How long did that take? How long did that happen? Over? Under thirty minutes? How long before

the first over? They were already thinking about a guarantee? Right, and they're like, hey, um, do you think we could maybe do you think you know all those struggling actors and actresses that have been begging us like knocking on the door, like pounding on the door trying to get in these movies. We have movies for them now, honestly,

like no joke. It had to like. I even think they came up with the idea for moving pictures with porn and mind and then they went, you know what, we could probably do some other get I feel like we could probably get the answer to this question. I gotta work computer. I'm not googling the company man s w G. Company Man, you asked my Google something can you put on your phone? And it's just the P word. No, I can't do that. Get off the company WiFi. I can't. Sorry,

he said that. He says that what's the company? Yes, get off the company WiFi? Because because Fox, because the executives of Travis Hansen does like Travis. We love you, but you're not that important. I just don't want to draw the intention to myself, all right. On that note, on the spot, twee tweet me if you know when Born was invented in relation to the first movie. That's good calls. This has been good calls with Dean Blandino. Please follow me on Twitter at Dean Blandino on Instagram

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