Championship weekend has arrived, and we've got an a f C and an NFC Championship title preview for you here on Te Petz Babo Shusan here with Scott Pioli and dan Orlovsky. As we have enjoyed crawling inside the game, behind the xs and ohs and trying to give you a different view of football that you get on other podcasts.
We've done it all season long, and guys, we have now reached the final four, and we had an epic group of games to talk about last week, and you know, on paper, at least, I would think these two games have a chance to be almost, if not every bit as compelling as some of the football we saw this past week. We're gonna start with the a f C game, and that is Bengals Chiefs. We saw the Josh Allen Patrick Mahomes duel. We talked a lot about Joe Burrow last week and how incredible he has been in the
face of almost constant pressure. Now we get Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes in this matchup, and I'm wonder ring is there's something schematic that jumps out to you, guys, outside of just the two big names. Obviously, these two guys are gonna go out there and make plays. But is there a schematic advantage that one of these teams has over the other that people may not be talking about, because a lot of times it is in that right.
The devil can be in the details. In a matchup like this, we've got two quarterbacks that are so immensely talented, one team might have to beat the other in the chess match. Is there a chess match move out there that we're not thinking about. Well, I think that for Kansas City's offense, you know, playing against Cincinnati's defense, you've got opportunities to be very explosive on the perimeter um specifically the way that we saw Tyreek play from this
last weekend. You are going to get a lot of single higher coverage. That's who Cincinnati is, and it's gonna be very similar on the other side of the football, that's who Cincinnati is. So I think, you know, Kansas City has the chance to take some shots down field. Now, I also think that Cincinnati defensively has some schematic advantages with getting angle protections by the tackles of Kansas City's offense versus Cincinnati's defensive ends. You know, Hubbard and Hendrickson
are really good players. Obviously Tree Hendrickson is very very good. And the last time these two teams played would happen really in the second half, Bob was Cincinnati to actually flipped a little bit and decided, Okay, we're playing two man and we're just what we're gonna do is pre snap, get trade one on one and trade beat the doors off of Orlando Brown in protection. He did, he did, so they had protection, but you know, simulated pressure and
got one on one. So I think that's a little bit of a schematic vantage for Cincinnati defensively is how often they could do that? Um, And that's gonna come down to, you know, their their their corners, Eli Apple and I don't know, I don't know the correct pronunciation Ousier. I believe winning their one on yeah, yeah, winning their one on one battle sometimes, I get I was cautious with names winning their one on ones on the outside. And then I'd say, for for Cincinnati's offense, good luck
Ken City defensive. I mean just you know, the sim the more you could spread him and shred him, I think is better for Cincinnati. You know, hey, Jamar is gonna be on this side, and you know, um, Tyler Boyd's gonna be in the slot opposite him, and then Tee on the other side. And you know, I think we saw a little bit that you know, Mike Hughes the corner first Kansas City is is a good player,
but you can get after him. You feel like if you've got a good guy, and so you know how much of those guys schematically gonna match up and say, hey, you know Spags. You guys know Steve Pagnell Defense Cornell and he's single high, come after you and play single high. Okay, Um, you know, like I get it, that's who you are. But you do that. It's night night. So I think there's some stuff that they can go after for sure. Yeah, And I'm gonna stick with where you're at right now. Dan.
And to me, the the big concern is we talked about it on Tuesday, or I certainly talked about it on Tuesday, was protecting Joe Burrow regardless of the scheme. The mismatch, I think physically between the players, right, and not just the XS and o's, it's the Jimmy's and the joe os and Chris Jones Frank Clark, Melvin Ingram are lining up and they know that they're gonna go. I bet you their goal this week is to get more than the nine sacks that the Tennessee Titans had
last week. They're saying, okay, we're going double digits that I can see Spags right now. Steve Spagnell, defensive coordin Spags right now is making that a point um and they are going to be coming after him. And I'm concerned. You know, we talked about this bright future. This is where I get concerned about the future of some of our NFL superstars. And I worry about Joe Burrow. You know, they made the right decision in getting j Barr Chase,
but they still haven't fixed the protection enough. They've done some things to allow him to get the ball off, but he's still getting beat up. And you know, I think another key player this week. I talked about Jones, Clark, and Ingram, but the chief secondary where is Tarron Matthew gon be this weekend? You know, coming out of concussion protocol, we don't know where he's going to be. So I say all that to to say what the Bengals I
think need to focus on a little bit. Is the use again of Joe Mixon getting the ball in his hands short sideways, you know, getting him in space. But to me, one of the unsung heroes of their team this year and that has helped save Joe Burrow is c j Uzama, the tight end. And you know, he had forty nine catches this year in the regular season, and it was more than half of those catches were either first down for first downs or touchdowns. He was
a key player this past weekend. He had some key catches they didn't have, you know, the first downs of the touchdowns, but he was used. Well. He has become, for Joe Burrow, a very very important part. Now, do they need to get deep and get down field, Yeah, they do, But before they can figure this out, they're gonna have to make use of some of the short
and underneath stuff and the intermediate stuff. In my opinion, Yeah, Well, Joe Burrow actually had this to say after the win, heading into this past week, heading into this matchup with the Chiefs, and he has every confidence in the world that his team can go out there and pull this off. And we're really really good team. We're here to we're here to make noise, and no teams are gonna have to pay attention to us. We're, like I said, a really good team with really good players and coaches, and
we're coming forward. All so, he obviously has confidence that his team collectively can go out there and get this done. But you guys mentioned the pass rush, so you you talk about that chess move. If I were to counter, is there anything from Zach Taylor standpoint? Do do you alter anything? Is there? Does there ever come a time in this postseason where you say, we have all these weapons, and I want all these weapons on the field because
that's when we're at our best. Or does there ever come a time where you say, you know what, I cannot continue to have my quarterback get pounded and hit like this and expect to survive all the way through. What is the altar the goal of winning the Super Bowl?
Do you have to take a weapon off the field just to have extra protection out there once in a while for him thinking you might be able to go win a matchup, but I might have to have an extra tight end on the field, an extra offensive lineman on the field, just to make sure that my quarterback doesn't continue to take this pounding Nope, Nope, that's how you're built. You got and and you're really ship sailed. Yeah. Yeah, you're three weeks away from the end going, you're really
one week away from a solid break here. You know, you get some time. Not like I have any idea what two weeks off with the super Bowl is, but you know there, time is on your side. I think it's more of this, Bob, It's more a conversation you have with Joe, you know, if of constantly reiterating to him, Hey, budd, like, there's gonna be moments where I need you to be smart here. I need you to understand that. You know, we talked about him kind of holding onto the football
because he's not trying to be careless with it. There's gonna be some moments where you go, specifically early on in the game, don't take that shot. Let's not take any unnecessary shots. You know, there's there's moments, you know, to see that the saying there's a season for everything, there's a moment for everything as well. So I think it's more just controlling the conversation with Joe. Listen, there are times where you gotta stand in there and you
gotta make it and you gotta take it. You just gotta make that throw, and you're just gonna get beat up. And I think there's games that quarterbacks go into knowing that that that is a reality. Um, but I don't believe that this is a game somewhat like that, Bob. And my reason for saying that is this, you know, you always are ready for whatever defense is going to
do to you. But if if you're going into this game just as what is transpired, you know, the first time these teams played in who they are, you're thinking, all right, we're gonna get just a lot of one on ones. We're gonna get a lot of single coverage. So everybody at listening understands, like when when it's single coverage, it becomes I'm ten years old at recess, where's my guy? And who you know? Like my guy better than your guy?
Where's the kid who is better than everybody? I'm just gonna throw him the ball and he was grabbing an extra lunch at at recess. I mean that's just how
I rolled. And even Joe has said it right like, hey, Jamar is down there, So you know that's not a situation where you're thinking, I gotta hold onto the football here long and its zone coverage and I figure out to move people and um so, but I think it's more you've gotta be who you are, and you've got to threaten the defense and play on the offensive, and
it's just controlling that conversation with Joe Burrow. Yeah, and and you know to that point or if there's a I don't think it's a personnel tweak that you make. But maybe, as we talked about on Tuesday, getting him outside of that rigid pocket where he doesn't have a chance to throw the ball away is maybe get him on the edges. I'm not saying sprint or roll or boot maybe a little bit of that, but something to get him in position where he can throw it away. Dan, Yeah,
I like that. Well, let's let's spin this around then to the Chiefs, because what we have seen, I think a couple of questions that we've had during this season
about their offense have been answered a bit. Patrick Mahomes still seems to me like he's running for his life lot more than he has certainly in years past, but he also seems to now have the supporting cast guys outside of Kelsey and Hill playing more of a role in being more productive than they were middle of the season, right, mean, it wasn't that the big question when that offense was sputtering and we were wondering, are the Chiefs that are
gonna become the Chiefs again? It was Hardman and Pringle and Robinson and Edwards Hilaire. Are these guys gonna show up or the rest of this year is it just gonna be whatever Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelsey can give Patrick Mahomes. Is he getting enough out of the secondary skill guys and running for his life enough that this can still be the Chiefs offense that we've known, or at some point are they potentially going to uh to fall short here? You know, because of some of those
questions we asked during the year. Bob here, here's what I'll put It wasn't just the players that he that were that were absent or weren't making things happen. I just feel at the beginning of the the season he was sloppy. We talked about that at the beginning of the year, and he was sloppy with his throws. Again, I don't want to say he was smelling himself, but it was
almost like those great plays. Even some of those throws he made the last two weeks, um, they were and this is not the right way, but they were more sound than they were at the beginning of the year. They were sloppier at the beginning of the year. They're almost um a caricature of when he made those plays. He's far less careless with the ball than he was at the beginning of the year. You look at those first seven games when they started out three and four,
they had seventeen turnovers. They hadn't had seventeen turnovers in full seasons in twenty nineteen. They were turning the ball over at historical rate. And that's what the problem was. It was it's part it was, yes, Bob, it's it's what you were saying. In addition to that, it was the quarterbacks carelessness. And part of it I he He didn't seem as dialed in early in the season as he is now. And this is one of the things that the Chiefs have to be careful about moving forward.
They are so darn good, they're so talented as a team, they're so well coached, it gets to some people, it gets boring. And that's what it almost looked to me. Like they were a team that was a little bored because they felt like, Okay, when we kick in an overdrive, we can go and they weren't able to do that at the beginning of the season. They are on right now. And again, Tyreek Hill, for a player who has his explosiveness, you know, you don't generally see that improve over the season.
It's improving Kelsey, he's showing up. So again to me, it goes back to one thing, and that was turnovers and carelessness at the beginning of the year. That's different. Now. Yeah, I can't reiterate my agreement with that enough. I think that this past weekend was Patrick's best game in the pocket when it came to those mechanics, when it came to his feet, when it came to the timing of plays, and then outside of the part get his decision making.
That goes back to what we did not see in October, which was he was mechanically so spread out and mechanically so off balance and mechanically trying to throw everything outrageously um off platform when it wasn't needed. And then when he was outside the pocket, he was he was making poor decisions with the football and you know, he is very much so, and I would imagine focused on that and clean that up. And you know, Bob, I actually think their offensive line has done a pretty nice job.
I really do. I think their tackles are still you can get after him, you know, obviously this weekend I just talked about with Hendrickson and and Hubbard, But I think their interior three are pretty darn good. And um, I look at Patrick. Whenever I watched Patrick play, I just watch how deep he gets with his drops, and that tells me if he's trusting that group or not.
And he hasn't been, you know, really getting past that ten yard nine and a half ten yard marker, and that's telling me that he thinks that those guys are doing a good job in protection. And so um, there's I think that, Um, you know that's gonna be Another huge part for this game is Cincinnati's rush. And I said this this past week, and I don't think Buffalo did a good job with it. It's not just keeping
him in the pocket. You can't keep him in the pocket and give him somewhere to get to in the pocket. And it's not just making him move off a spot. It's making him move off the spot and not giving him a place to go. And that's the challenge you know he had. He had seventy yards rushing against the Bills. That's a career high and I think if Cincinnati wants
to win, that's got to be another focus point for them. Yeah, and watching him even when it appears he doesn't have a place to go, all of a sudden, he comes up with an arm angle where you're like, wow, like you did have a place to go, didn't. It was like Ozzie Smith, uh, you know, turning a double play yes and and then playing quarterback. It's it's just amazing to watch. It's gonna be a fascinating matchup burrowing Mahomes.
It's another young you know, entering, if not dead, in the prime of their career, your marquee, a f C quarterback matchup. Can't wait to watch it. Very interesting game. The late game as well. We're gonna talk about that when we come back. Niners Rams, Jimmy g and the Niners against Matthew Stafford and the Rams. Can the Rams finally get past that Niners hurdle they have a chance to get to the Super Bowl, And we'll talk about the NFC Championship game in a moment on taps. We
are back on tape. It's Bobo shoes it Scott boldly, dan Orlovsky, let's move to the NFC Championship game. And to me, Scott, the fascinating thing here is the Rams have an opportunity to make what they've done payoff. Right. It's It's funny because when and I live in this Jets world where we always seem to be looking forward to the draft. Who's coming next in the draft. We've got these great draft choices, and yes, you do have to build the core of your team through the draft.
I get that, but they're always also are these moments at times, it seems for championship teams were general managers sitting in your chair have to sit there and say, all right, have we done everything we can do to build this young core? What's missing? Now we've got a chance to swing for the fences. Right now we have
a chance to say, like, what's the goal here? Was the goal to just constantly build for the future, constantly to look down the road, or is the goal to get to the point where, hey, we've got a team that actually is good enough to go do this Let's throw a bunch of first round draft choices out there and get rid of the quarterback we had and Jared Goff who got us to a super Bowl but we weren't able to win it. Let's go get the guy
that we think ken win it for us. Let's roll the dice and give up a bunch of resources to get von Miller. And they've done that right, and now the Rams have a chance to make that pay off. That that has to be the ultimate you know, as a general manager sitting up there in the press box, going I've done all I can to put the team together. Now we're just gonna go see if they could do it. But the Rams have a chance to now have these decisions pay off and actually swing for the fences and
hit a home run. Yeah. This this I would love to have a whole half hour show on this because I was asked, did they get what they wanted out of Matthew Stafford? Was this trade worth it? And to me, yes, this weekend was worth it. But what they're looking for is not a win. As you mentioned, you know they've
been to the super Bowl with Jared Goff. What they need to do they they need the whole Angelotta for all that they've done with this football team and the capital that they've given up in terms of cash, cap room and draft picks. This isn't about getting to the NFC championship game. This isn't about one super you know, getting to the Super Bowl. It's about winning the Super Bowl. Because truly, in my opinion, with all that they've given up for the future, they need to win the Super Bowl.
And that's not to put pressure on Matthew or anybody else, but again, they've been here before. And it's not just the Matthew Stafford trade in a vacuum, right we we can't look at it that it was. It's Von Miller, it's Jalen Rams, it's all the stuff that they've done. That was it seven years without a first round pick. And I understand you can be wrong with the first round pick, but you need picks for opportunity to be right. And one thing we've learned in the NFL is you
can't consistently build a team through free agency exclusively. At some point in time, you're going to have to draft well and draft good players in order to keep your salary cap in bounce because at some point in time, you know, the bill comes due, and you know this idea and this concept of your one player away, I've always struggled with it because very early in my NFL career, a quick story here, you know, I was with the Cleveland Browns when we um went to the playoffs and
we lost three times that year the Pittsburgh Steelers. And in the playoff game against the Steelers in Pittsburgh, we started this game and Vinny Testoverty was our quarterback. He was having a good year, and we had two drops check three drops on three pass place and it was Michael Jackson was one of the receivers, and Derrick Alexander. And after, you know, we lost the playoff game. It was the week after we had beat the Patriots in the wild card round, and the talk was, gosh, we
need an elite receiver and we're one player away. In this belief was that we were one player away. And what did we do in the offseason. We went out and made Andre rise and the highest paid wide receiver in National Football League history. And I think sometimes what happens is when you have that mentality of that you are one anything away from anything in life and in business, you you have to rethink how you've built the whole thing. And I you know, to me, this wasn't just about
Matthew Stafford. It wasn't just about von Miller. It's this accumulation things. And again I have to reiterate they have given up significant capital to get there, and at some point time the bill is gonna come do There's only so much that you can kick things down the road in terms of cap room, cap space and cash availability and or quite honestly, there's this whole other thing of managing expectations. You can't keep tricking your fans into believing that, oh,
this is the one. Oh you know, you go out and you sell a bunch of Matthew Stafford jerseys and or No, they want wins, and more than wins, they want championships. So again, forgive me for being long winded on this, but this, this is a conversation we can have. You know, maybe we do this in the offseason, guys, but it's but it's an important part about what we're getting ready to see this weekend. They have to win, guys. I mean, it's kind of fascinating to see if it
pays off. I mean, and you referenced finally, Scott like, they gotta beat a team they haven't done in six times to kind of have it pay off. I mean they have not beat San Francisco in six straight matches. I mean Sean McVey, who's one of the best coaches in football, hasn't beat San Francisco since two thousand eighteen. That's that's insane. You know, this is a team that three weeks ago had a seventeen nothing lead at home against San Francisco. I promise you, I promise you. They
didn't want to see San Francisco in the playoffs. They don't want them to get in. You know, as much as you know you wanted them to get in because you felt they were the team to knock off Green Bay and then you don't have to go there because you're the two seed. You don't want him in because you know how good they are. I think the challenge for the Rams this weekend is starts there is the
mental hurdle, is that we can beat them. Hurdle, you know, from the head coach down, because this is still a little bit like the game for Green Bay last week. This is still a little bit teacher versus mentor so to speak, a lot of what Sean McVeigh learned he learned under the Shanahan's and Kyle Shanahan, and he's got to jump that hurdle. I think the challenge for them is they are going like it's it's very simplistic. Defensively for the Rams, you are gonna have to stop the
toss like this is forty years ago. We're going to toss the ball to the perimeter and you're gonna have to set edges and you're gonna have to run down the line of scrimmage and your back end is gonna have to come put your face mask on people. And Kyle is going to make guys do that. And it's not gonna be Jalen Ramsey. He's gonna do it away from Jalen Ramsey because he knows Jalen's willing. And so that's gonna be a just a Okay, here comes four quarters of this and we gotta be ready for it.
They're gonna have to physically match George Kittle and Deebo Samuel Defensively. You're gonna have to physically do that, and then they're gonna have to give the opportunity because I think this. If Trent Williams does not play because of that ankle, there is the chance that this game looks a lot like it did for the first three quarters against Tampa Bay, the way Von Miller's planned and the
way is playing, and the way Leonard Floyd's planned. If this becomes a situation where it is second and eight, third and six plus, good night, and I think the Rams will have to be very smart with you know, I kind of phrase it as you got packed the paint. You gotta dare Jimmy Garoppolo for four quarters to throw
the ball outside the numbers. You have to. And it's the way that you like if just speaking from an offensive perspective, it's the way that you position yourselves on the outside of receivers and muddy the middle of the field in regards that, and I think if they do that, they got a chance to play well defensively and then offensively. For the Rams, their offensive line has to have the best game of the season. It just does. San Francisco is where they are right now because the way their
front is playing. Their front is playing so explosive off the football, and that is allowing their coverage to just be so cloudy and muddy, and I don't know if it's if is it cover three, is it cover four? Is it three cloud or is it four? Is it six? Is it too many? You know, you just constantly cloudy for a quarterback. And so this will be a line of scrimmage football game. You know, one thought that I've had about this game too, is it's not who's gonna
win this game, but who's not gonna lose this game? Again, you go back to the Rams game. They almost gave that game away. They almost made so many mistakes. And I'm not saying Matthew Stafford. I'm talking about their team almost found a way to lose that game and give that game away to Tom Brady. Then on a flip side, the Niners are a team that generally praise upon um mistake football like that, And it's one of the ways that I feel that Kyle is so much like Bill
Belichick that he waits for teams to make mistakes. But on the Niner side of the ball, they've got to make sure that Jimmy Garoppolo doesn't lose the game. There's there's capability on both football teams where they could lose the game rather than the other team when it if that makes sense. Yeah, the quarterback situation to me is fascinating.
It always is. But talking about the Rams, how they've built their team, they had Jared Goff on the team got to a super Bowl and said, you know what, we're sending the message loud and clear, Jared, we don't believe that you're that guy. We have to go trade for that guy, the guy we think is that guy, and they bring in Matthew Stafford and they might be right.
Jimmy Garoppolo got to a super Bowl at one point with this team, and this past offseason they sent the message loud and clear, Jimmy, we don't think you're that guy. We just don't think you're that good. We're gonna go draft your replacement. And Jimmy Garoppolo is still here. This is like having Jared guff still on the team with
Matthew Stafford and still being the quarterback. Right It's amazing because I mean, you like, you're well, but your your replacements right over waiting to take your job, and yet you've got your team one step away from the super Bowl. It's amazing. You know. It's crazy about that situation though, because your point is accurate, and I have two thoughts
on it. Jimmy obviously has have had to handle the situation phenomenally well, just from a a mindset, a leadership, a lack of ego, just uh a wee before me. He's got to behind closed doors to have handled it incredibly well. Because one of the things that I took out of the ram Bucks game how you always want to see how a team is getting after Tom Brady, how much they are rushing him, how many people they're bringing. And it always seems like teams that were able to
beat Tom Brady could get home with four. They never brought more than five, But they also never brought three, right, So what did they do with this offensive line and Jimmy Garoppolo this week? Is this a game where they blitz him at times? This is a game where you just trust that the four sometimes five, can get home on their own. I mean, you mentioned the personnel they've got up front, the Rams. They were able to do that to Tom Brady this past week. Is that where
this game is won and lost? Yeah, they're not gonna come after Jimmy g It's just not who they are, you know. I think that you may not need to. Yeah, right, that's exactly. Ralliames is a huge piece to this. Again, this game feels very narrative, like leading up to it, the way I felt about Tampa Bay last week. I felt and I told everyone like, yo, if Trent Works doesn't play or Tristan Worse doesn't play, this game's a blowout. And it was for those three quarters until the Rams started,
you know, drive me nuts. And I because Compton, the right tackle for San Francisco, got beat up this past weekend and buy Green Bays defense. And I think if you're going into this game with those two tackles, you're saying, oh, I do not think that they're gonna pressure this team. Listen, um less need the general manager for for the Los Angeles Rams did not go get Vaughan so he could
pressure more. He got Vaughan so he could pressure less. Now, the thing that they have done a little bit, Bob, that I think is to your point a little bits. Troy Reader, number fifty one, their linebacker. They really pressured him in some of their zone blitzes last week a lot. Now, I don't know what the almost sack in the wild card game, right, So the past couple of weeks they started to do it a little bit more Scott, and I don't know if it's now it's there's a difference
between a dog and a blitz. A dog is when you bring bring five guys. A blitz is when you bring six in pressure. So they've started to dog him a little bit more where they pressure him or blitz him as he used him as the blitzer, and then they dropped people from the line of scrimmage. And I don't know if that's something that they've wanted to get more of or they're saying, we don't love this guy
in in past coverage. Let's use him to try to get him in a one on one pass rush situation, help the rush a little bit for those other guys, while also not kind of exposing the numbers of our coverage on the back end. Be fascinating to watch. Can't wait because the next time we are talking here on tapeds, we're going to have a Super Bowl matchup to talk about. We are back next week. We'll be looking at these games and we'll be looking forward to the Big One.
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