Hour 1 – NFL Divisional, Ryan Clark

You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox Sports Radio.

Hoop, you had a great weekend, everybody. Gang's all here in the home studio ready to go. A lot to recap, and we get ready for a national title game coming up tonight. Although I'm listening to ESPN promoting this and it's David versus Goliath. Huh, excuse me? Notre Dame a David. I don't think so. Now you might look at the point spread and say eight eight and a half. But Notre Dame one of the more storied, maybe the most storied franchise of all time in college football history, going

Here.

I think it was nice, it was fun, and everybody grabbed it, ran with it and speculated. But it feels like maybe that's been tempered just a little bit. So we'll keep an eye on what could happen this week now with Ben Jonson and Aaron Glenn, the coordinators with the Lions available to do interviews, have a poll question, play of the day, stat of the day, all of

About we had to beat the officials.

If that's your mindset going into a game against Patrick Mahomes feels like you're kind of defeated. Hey, we knew we had to beat the referees as well. Well, you might have had to beat the referees, but it would have helped if you kept the Chiefs from beating up your quarterback. You had over one hundred yards more of total offense, You didn't have any turnovers. You have no excuses other than your excuses that you didn't take care

I mean he was hit fourteen times.

That's on you, not on the officiating, not on Patrick Mahomes. The Chiefs do just enough and you have to do just a little bit more, and you didn't do that. So I don't want to hear the complaining from the Texans. You had a great season, you had an odd season. You came back and you had impressive football there at the end of the season, But you guys lost the game. You had your opportunities in the red zone, don't miss kicks. I mean, there's a lot of blame that goes around.

And that's the big difference.

You know.

We saw this with Jared Goff, and we saw this with Sam Darnold, like you're like, okay, all right, hey, these guys are looking good and then they weren't looking good and then all of a sudden, we seem to regress back to yeah, kind of the same old Like, is this the ceiling for Jared Goff? Maybe they had a wonderful season and they had a lot of injuries to overcome, and man, was there some pain in Dan Campbell's voice after the loss.

And you lose these games. Man, it's like the players, what they put into it. A lot of people don't know, you know, what they go through. You have to get up bodies, beaches, you know, mentally, start locked on and do those things so long season.

Yeah, yeah, tough, because if you're a lines fan, some of you, probably a lot.

Of you book flights to New Orleans.

And I understand why you would, because he thought, all right, this is our We're the team of destiny. You start to believe that until you realize you're not the team of destiny. That might be Washington, might be Philadelphia, might be Kansas City, maybe it's Buffalo's turn this year. But these losses, I mean, this is what you take into the off season. Imagine you're Mark Andrews. You've been the security blanket for Lamar Jackson his entire career. All else fails,

They stayed with that in the postseason.

I got Derrick Henry and I'm not using Derrick Henry at the end of the game. I would love to have had Lamar and Derrick Henry and say, you guys pick your poison, try to stop one of us, and they didn't do it. Here is Lamar after the game talking about turnovers.

It's a team effort, buzz.

It is behind making places happening out down that SPF four US came up short. And like I've been saying all season, every time we had situations like this, turnovers pare fattor Pennanti is caff fattor today twelve tonight the turnover had you know, that's why we lost the game, because as you.

Can see, moving the ball wonderfully is hold on.

To the ball.

I'm sorry for my language, car No, I'm talking.

Derreck Henry had sixteen carries.

I thought, in this kind of game against that defense, at least twenty twenty five carries. I don't know what the downside is with that. You've been this guy ran for nineteen hundred yards, so it's not like you go, hey.

You know what, we're thinking about doing something different.

This is what you did. He averaged five and a half yards per carry. Don't get out of your comfort zone. Do what you do well. I mean, Buffalo's defense is not formidable. It's it's a ben don't break defense. I thought that they would just go here, we go, Hey, Derek's getting the ball, try to stop him, or you have Lamar as well. But look, you get in these moments and it's one play or two plays, and that's your season.

Here.

This is what it sounded like last night. With the potential game tying two point conversion for the tie the two point conversion, Lamar takes a snap roll to the right, throws.

Complete all he dropped it.

Mark Andrews hit him in the wounds, and Mark Andrews.

Dropped it as he fell into the end zone.

One of the more surehanded players the Ravens in Raven's history, dropped it, hitting right in the.

Hands yep I think and even Jim Nants thought that he had caught it just because of the angle there. And it's Mark Andrews because he should have caught it. Does it come down to him? Yes it does. Yeah, that play extends, extends the game and extends their season.

Is it the reason why they lost?

No, but that will be the singular play that will look at that they and the other play will be when the ball got punched out because Josh Allen didn't play great. But what I loved about Josh Allen, and I preached this all year long, he's learning. He's learned how to play the position. He doesn't have to be superman. He doesn't have to try so much, try so hard, Fewer turnovers. That's how you win these games. Nothing fancy, just no mistakes. And that's the difference in this game.

Yes, there was a point in time where the Ravens had the ball. It was first in goal from the two and I don't know how you don't give Dereck Henry the bass four straight times, so there's no way you're keeping him from getting those two yards four straight times.

And I don't know that they gave it to him once crazy to me.

It did remind me of marshn Lynch, like they have to give it to him. The super Bowl's on the line, He's right there.

Just run it in. Give it to this dude. What do you throwing it for?

Stat of the Day brought to you by Panini America, the official trading cards for the Dan Patrick Show.

Speaking of stats, Pauline.

Derrick Henry had five carries on that touchdown drive the Ravens had the third quarter and the other eight drives that they had, he carried the ball eleven times. Yeah, I have to double check that stat of the day, stat of the day, that past stat of the day, stat of the day.

Here comes that what stat of the day.

Creativity can be overrated sometimes, How time we just do something really simple, just simple. Don't have to you know, you don't have to do trickery. You don't have to be Ben Johnson in the lines. Just sometimes you just go here it comes and it's gonna hurt, yes, Tod, But then you.

Can do that.

And then if you get stopped and it doesn't work out, you know there's gonna be people saying they knew that was going to happen. Why would you do the same thing that they're waiting for. The Eagles got away with it. Everyone knew Saquon Barkley was going to get the ball, and he destroyed them even though.

They knew this was going to happen. But Todd, you just answered your own question. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work. Obviously it didn't work for the Raves.

Ilver thought it like, oh, they'll never expect this.

They think we're just gonna.

Have Lamar and Derek run the hole.

When they stop him, we can have this conversation. They didn't stop him. It did not They knew that Saquon was going to run the ball. They couldn't stop him. And if I'm Buffalo God, I know that one of those two is gonna run the ball. I just had to factor in the web like I was blown away. I kept going, God, this is really simple, isn't it? Why are they making it complicated? First Hour brought to you by the great folks at Maco. Most cars on the road could use a little TLC. At Mako, they

Uh?

Oh, better get make a Seeton what's the poll question from the first hour of the program.

Well, we got a few options here that we could start with. We could start with who had the best weekend? We'll start with who had the worst weekend? We can start with who Is that a tougher loss for the Lions of the Ravens.

I don't know.

It feels like it's the Lions, Like I can hear it in Dan Campbell's voice. I don't know if John Harbaugh's voice. Can you play John Harball talking about Mark Andrews.

Let me hear his voice. There's nobody that.

Has more heart and cares more and fights more than Mark. We wouldn't be here without Mark Andrews. That's what you say to him, So you know, it's like anything else. I mean, destiny is a decision that you make and it's how you handle what comes in your life. Now, Marko handled fantastic like he always does, because because he's a high character person, he's a tough person and he's a good person. So proud of him's a I'm proud of all.

The guys, more of an uplifting Dan Campbell's like, I can't hide any of this.

This emotion is deep, deep, yes. Hey.

There was a moment just after halftime last night when John Harbaugh came out and he's doing the interview and they're like, hey, coach Joe, you know what we are going to say whatever this is in that second half you can start.

Pluf and they're like, what do you say to Lamar Jackson?

You know, sort of like a rough first half he had two turnovers or what do you say to Lamar Jackson going into the second half?

He goes, I don't need to say anything to him. He knows what he's doing.

I don't.

I don't need to say anything. It's Lamar Jackson.

He's good.

He knows that he shouldn't have done those two things, and he knows what he needs to do moving forward. He's fine.

It doesn't happen often, you know. And I had an unbelievable season. It's just like justin Herbert, what did he have three interceptions? And then he surpasses that. Lamar Jackson doesn't, you know what four interceptions? They don't turn the ball over and then what do they do? Interception and I think maybe the re ran the wrong route and then you know, fumbles.

It's just.

It's so small the margin between you win or you lose, and that's why Buffalo moved on. I don't think they tried to play any different than they had all season long, and it felt like Boldemort got away, just like last year, Just like last year.

We'll take a break.

Ryan Clark got a busy day, busy night, and busy week covering the NFL for the Mothership. His son is playing in the National title game for Notre Dame. We'll touch on both of those topics right after this Dan Patrick's Show. Thanks for listening to The Dan Patrick Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday morning nine to noon Eastern or six to nine Pacific on Fox

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Get to your phone calls as we always do every Monday, Best and Worst to the Weekend. It was a while back that I mentioned here's a wild card MVP candidate. Nobody would had brought his name up, but watching him play for his team and what he meant for his team Jalen Carter, and I mentioned it on the show that he's one of those that you don't think of because it's an offensive driven award. Jalen Carter probably made the biggest play of the game last night, and just

Fricker or right it is.

You know, we got opportunity to play two Super Bowls as a family. But these last few weeks have been absolutely amazing to you know, see your son sort of live a dream, see your son make a decision that was tough on him. In the offseason. He wanted to stay at ASU. He felt like that's where his loyalty should be.

I can be honest.

As parents, we thought it was best for him to leave, and we had those conversations and when he kind of finally acquiesced to what we wanted and started to take trips, when he chose Notre Dame, I was elated.

It was my dream school.

But you know, in week two when they lose to NIU, and then as the season and goes along and Arizona State's playing extremely.

Well, you're like, holy hell, did did we make a mistake?

Did we push him into something that's not going to be positive for him? So for him to be in this moment, having beaten Georgia, having beaten Penn State, and now an opportunity in my opinion, to play the most talented team in college football, but certainly the most talented.

Group of wide receivers, knowing the way that they're going to play.

I think it's just been an amazing year, amazing opportunity for him to show who he is. But as a team and Marcus Freeman and what that school has been, the tradition in which Notre Dame plays with each.

And every week.

It has really been one of the best experiences of my athletic career.

But to see him do it, I mean, as a parent, there's nothing better.

More likely to talk to him more today or less likely to talk to him today.

No, we don't change anything.

VP Like, that's the cool part about having been through it as a faller and my wife having been through it as a wife and now going through it as a mother, you know, like we understand what happens. He kind of dictates how much we talk, how much we see him on game weekends, and the one thing for him, he's like, pop, I don't want to change a lot because it's the championship. And so we got an opportunity

We have a ritual and you know this will be the last time we do it.

Always wait in the same exact spot for him before every game, And it started last year where I just write him a little note. I thought last year would be his last, but it ended up getting injured and coming back, and so this would be the last time I get to do it.

I'll do it from the.

Field because it's obviously is pn game, but for me, it's like the it's the best part of the day.

I get to help you.

I get to tell him I love him, I get to hand him over a few words he gets to read before every game. And uh, you know this would be our last time doing it in college ball.

Gonna have a lot of emotions there.

Yeah, I'm a cry. I didn't I didn't like as a player. Honestly, we won the Super Bowl. I didn't cry when we lost the Super Bowl. I didn't cry. I've cried more in these last three weeks than I like to admit, which I.

Am admitting to you now publicly.

But I think that it just shows you how much it matters, how much different it is.

But your son's going against some pretty good wide receivers. I would think you've had conversations on dad, what do you see?

No, not really.

It's been a cool evolution of his playing career.

We were driving in the eighth grade.

I forget where we were going, and he turns to me and he's like, Pop, i'd love to play a college sport. And at the time he loved basketball too. I was like, well, Saturday gonna be basketball. I've seen you do that, you know. I was like, you can play that to have fun. And I said, and it's going to have to be at defensive back. And he's like, well, why I play wide receiver for two I was like, you know, I've been around those guys and I've watched him catch footballs.

Like it's just different. I said, but I can help you be a defensive back.

And he broke his ankle probably six months later playing basketball, and so we kind of had to rehab him back from that, get him prepared for a sophomore year, went to really competitive high school, and I mean, man, we've slept at some of the worst hotels to go to some of these football camps. We have been on planes, we've driven, and it was just that journey. And so every high school game in sophomore year, I graded the film,

And I think it is just the coolest.

Thing in the world is Ryan Clark in the Mothership won a Super Bowl with the Steelers and weekdays for Eastern on NFL Live, I was just talking about the Ravens all season long. I said, I don't care what you do during the regular season. I want to see what your game plan is going to be in the postseason. I want to see if you stay with what made you successful. You got a great running back, and you didn't stay with that running back in the second half,

I thought early on they didn't have the sort of success they wanted to have, and when you go throughout the season with Todd Munkin, that's what we see.

You know, there are the games that Derrick Henry doesn't rush for one hundred yards, they don't win. And I think people try to correlate that to continuously or consistently giving Derrick Henry the ball. But I think also in those games he didn't start out with early success, and so without that early success, when they go to eleven personnel which is three wide receivers or twelve personnel, which.

They love to use, Isaiah likely in that way, it.

Becomes a Justice Hill game a little bit in the past game, or it becomes a Lamar Jackson drop back pass game.

And I think even with Derrick Henry not having.

Early success, I thought in the second half he put his imprint on the game, like, that's not why they lost, right, you go to the first half and it wasn't the interception by Lamar Jackson that think they went three and out after that. But it's the big fumble, the DeMar Hamlin tackle with the return by Von Miller. It's the fumble of Mark Andrews where you have an opportunity to score.

Is Josh Allen consciously more conscious or like a where like situational football We always talk about that, but he just seems like, hey, I normally would try to do a little more. Feels like he's got maybe a seat belt on, and it's a wise thing.

Is that conscious?

Yeah? And you know, I don't even know, you know, DP.

I don't want to call it a seat belt because people will say or they'll think it's a negative thing.

And what you're saying is true. It's positive. He understands, let's not go lose the game.

Right.

When people talk about him not winning the.

MVP last year, they always point to his stats, saying how much.

Better they were than Lamar Jackson.

But he also had eighteen interceptions and that was a way to hurt his team. This year, he cut that number down tremendously. But when you watch him, he's taking what the defense gives him. If it's a third and four, he has no problem only getting five yards, only getting six yards.

He's not trying to take the shots down the field.

He's playing with the level of efficiency and impatience that matters.

But to me also like a.

Joy of not being sort of forced into doing certain things to get people the ball, not doing certain things to prove a point. He seems extremely relaxed and comfortable in who he is and who he's playing with. And because of that efficiency, because of that patience because being of playing risk averse. That's why this team wins this football game. One team turns the ball over, the other team doesn't.

More surprised the Ravens lost, or the Lions lost.

Lions Lions, And it's just like this weird thing because when you think about all the defensive players the.

Lions have lost, it makes total sense.

Amik Robinson, who have been playing well on the outside, he gets hurt very early on.

In that game, and so it's not one of those things.

Oh, you know, there isn't a reason why they couldn't get stops defensively, but they had been losing all those people the entire year. You know, most of those players weren't available against Minnesota when they took them to the woodshed.

And a winner take all game in.

The last week of the season, and so it was surprising to see just how bad they were defensively, but also the turnovers and interceptions by Jared Golf, which truly caused them the game, because when you think of some of the games they had to win down the stretch without those injuries, it was because the offense was unstoppable and offense protected the ball.

They didn't do those things against Washington, and it cost them.

The public perception, national perception is Mahomes gets calls that other quarterbacks don't get. As a former defensive player, your thoughts on that topic.

Well, I think a lot of quarterbacks get calls that they shouldn't get, right. I think there is a conscious effort to protect quarterbacks at all costs.

And.

Officials are humans, then they just are like they know which ones are different. We felt the same way about Tom Brady, right, and we weren't wrong. Think about it.

When Tom Brady gets hurt in the first game of the two thousand and eight season, there's an entire rule built the round the way he got hurt, right, which still stands today. You can't hit quarterbacks below the knee, and so there are these quarterbacks that are treated differently. I think when you see it on display at in such a large stage in slow motion, it feels to us like, Okay, that's just a bad call.

Where they're cheating from Mahomes.

But the Will Anderson play, we look at it and we go in slow motion like, yeah, he definitely didn't hit him in the head. When it's happening in real time, what is the official seat right, you go back to Sam Donald to get in his face mask like basically take it off against the Rams. Throughout the season, we're like, well, how you miss that? So maybe that's one of those

You can't call that.

You can't give them fifteen yards and you can't give them an extra set of dollars and they end up scoring a touchdown on that drive that essentially puts makes it a two score game.

Those calls have to be reviewable.

If you don't want to review him during the season, that's fine, But you can't put a team like the Houston Texas that's scrapping and scraping and clawing to stay in the game with the two time defending Super Bowl champions in that sort of situation to where you can visibly see Demico Ryans biting his tongue after.

The game to not say he felt cheated.

I don't know if this analogy works for you, but later in Floyd Mayweather's career, it wasn't about trying to knock you out. He was just going to play defense. You ounce smart, you. Patrick, Mahomes is not blowing you away with stats. This isn't forty five to fifty touchdown passes. It's a I'm just going to to kind of spar with you, and then you're gonna make one or two mistakes, you leave Kelsey open, We're gonna score. You know, my

Yeah, I think that's I think that's the key with him right now.

This man has shown up so many times in critical situational football moments that he expects to.

His team expects him to, hell the other team expects him to And.

When we saw him get into trouble, was trying to relive those forty five fifty touchdown days without having forty five fifty touchdown.

People to throw it too.

Yeah, you know, and I think he's had to make that adjustment.

I mean, Dan, you know, like we all have an ego, right, Like we.

All feel like we're good at certain things and we want to be sort of seen and perceived that way. And for Patrick Mahomes, he was perceived and seen as the best quarterback on earth. And you want to be able to push the ball down the field. You want to be able to show those skills, but right now,

This year, but everybody's chasing him.

You start to realize that actually winning is more important than anything, and that's what he's doing.

Are you sitting tonight watching this game?

So I didn't sit the entire second half of the Penn State. I stood up the entire game, And so I don't know. I like to call myself like a calm dad, because I really am most part high school I didn't say much. Throughout all of his years in college, I didn't say much. I just kind of set off with myself and watched the games. But it's been impossible for Georgia, it was impossible for Penn State. Uh, and it'll probably be impossible for Ohio State tonight. I mean, hell,

Anyway, good luck to mom too.

I mean, yeah, she the second half of Penn State.

She just cleaned out her email, she said, she said, Uh, she's like, I can't watch anymore, Like this game has my Like her her watch kept telling her her heart rate was high, and so she's like, yeah, I'm gonna clean out my emails. And so I don't think she has any emails to clean out tonight, Dan, So maybe I'll just give her my phone because I have like eleven thousand underregulars.

Oh, you're going to be a mess, hopefully in a good way. Hopefully I'm messing a good way.

Europe.

You know, you know what's crazy, Dad, Like, at the end of the game, you love all those moments, all those tense moments, all those stressful moments, because you win if you don't win, then it's just three and a half hours of your life. You know that you felt like you were going puke.

Good look. Thanks for joining us, Ryan Man, thank you so much.

Day every great day.

That's Ryan Clark, his son Jordan's safety for Notre Dame. It's Ohio State and Notre Dame in the title game.

We'll come back.

We got our play of the day, your phone calls, best and worst of the weekend, Steve Young, next hour. We're back after this. Thanks for listening to The Dan Patrick Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday morning nine until noon eastern six to nine Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, and you can find us on the iHeartRadio app at FSR or stream us live on the Peacock app.

Of the day, This is the play of the day. Check this out wide open hundred eighty two.

Run.

This would sent into the T T TUO game.

Mike Tariko, Chris Collinsworth with the calls. Saquon Barkley. I think the two meetings he had with the Rams, he had over four hundred and fifty yards rushing. He could end up passing Terrell Davis for the most rushing yards for an entire year. So that's regular season in postseason, and if they win this next game, they go to

That's your play of the day, brought to you by Rapid.

Radios walkie Talkies instant push to talk offering national LTE coverage, no subscriptions ever. Perfect for an in contact with your friends. Go to Rapidradios dot com get sixty percent off and free shipping. James in Virginia. Yeah, yeah, how you feeling well?

Thank you for taking them up. Oh DP, it is surreal right now if I'm being honest, man, salute the commanders and thank you for having me this morning. What a great weekend of football we saw. I think you hit it man, Dereck Henry. The Ravens really missed opportunity. It should have been a Derek Henry show all day long. What here else can you say about the Chiefs Seven straight AFC championship games. Absolutely amazing to see what they

Bought your ticket to New Orleans yet?

I was gonna ask you, man, I had my socks in the bag. I wasn't sure if you're gonna let me come down there or not. But I'm very excited. Man, I can't I tell you what. They certainly do have a chance. When you made that comment back in October, I laughed at all because it just seems so far away, you know, to watching the team when where they're coming from. But wow, it is a reality now, and the Washington fans can rejoice because they have a quarterback that they

You got an open invitation to join us James in New Orleans.

Okay, Wow, that.

Amazing, man. You know, you guys are too good to me. Man, you guys are too good to me. You know, I really appreciate it. Just a special year shout out to all the Washington fans. And you know, I'll tell you one last thing, man, the best thing that they did because they had to change their name, man. And I know there's so many people that love the Redskins monitor and the Redskins name, but they kept the burgundy and gold.

Man.

I love those uniforms. I love those uniforms. James, I gotta go. Congratulations, have a great day, Buddy's all right, Salute the commanders and your wife with the baby. Do in August and we'll maybe see you in New Orleans. Gus in La, Hi, Gus, Good.

Morning, mister Patrick. Hope you're and the boys are doing well. Hey, salute the Commanders. That's got to be the best of the weekend, man, that's the weekend. I was able to watch the game this past weekend with the buddy of mine. Unfortunately he lost everything, so it was good to be able to rally around and get back to some laughs and get back to a little bit of normalcy, and we got to watch one of the biggest upsets. I told my buddy, I was like, it seems like ever

You know what.

Too much bad in the world right now for me to focus on a worse I'm not going to mention Mark Andrews. You know, you boys will go into how it was not his fault. But you know, hey, a great weeknd of football. The Rams did us proud here in LA. But you know what, the Eagles are going to march forward. The Eagles. I believe the Eagles are going to go on unfortunately slut the Commanders, but I think the Eagles say kwon, that offensive.

Line is too strong.

Thank you, Gus. Steve Young will join us. Coming up next down. James in Virginia got another baby on the way Commanders in the NFC title game. Wow, best and worst of the weekend. More phone calls coming up hour two on this Monday. Right after this