Super Bowl fifty nine. The matchup has said it is the Chiefs and the Eagles. It's a rematch of Super Bowl fifty seven. Your early line, as case, is slight favorite. Let's break it down though. Our next guest joins us from time to time, and he's always good to give us time because he's very busy now because.
He's very famous.
His name is Ben Solac from ESPN on a Monday, Ben, Happy Monday, buddy.
How are we doing?
Hey?
Well, I'm good, so I don't have to.
Tell you that the internet is where cowards go to feel brave, correct, I think so?
Yeah?
Okay, good? Good?
Because I look I just because I'll just tell you I watched the video that you posted and I thought, no, I'm I'm just saying I thought it made a ton of sense. I'm not sure why you're getting as much heat as you're getting, but you know, as somebody, and I'm speaking for myself who's been uh, you know, in the crossairs of like every fan base possible around here and BYU fan trying to get me canceled for years online, I just wanted to make sure that you're hanging in.
You're doing all right.
Thank you, man, I agree. I appreciate it.
And when it is not the first time.
I've had a take and then people get upset about it won't be the last part of the job.
The good news that they say to the Super Bowl for free, the bad news and people get magi on the internet.
It's just like any other jobs.
Bats no biggy, fair enough.
So for the people out there that don't live online, first, congratulations to you. Second of all, let's walk people through what went down. You were breaking down with a piece of video that I think you do as well as anybody out there.
Why Josh Allen on that final throw.
That was miraculous that he got it to former you Dalton Kink Do you thought he had a better look to go to Khalil Shaker.
So let's hear about it.
Yeah. The Bills walk out empty, right, they have four receivers to left, one receivers are the right, and then they do something that they do a lot on fourth and.
Medium, third and medium.
They motioned Khali into the bath field and they snap it while he's moving to the backfield. And most teams when they snap the guy moved to the backfield, that guy keeps running that direction. But the Bills like to have him slam on the brakes and then run back the way that he came, and then they'll throw it to him in the flat.
He usually had a lot of space to create Yuard death to the cash. They did against the Chiefs.
Last year on a fourth and three right around this field, converted and kept the drive going and eventually scored.
There's a common look for them.
Alan has the ability to go to Shakir right then and there.
Right's the first read.
He's the first option, or he can try to read out the rest.
Of the of the passing concept and he gets his own coverage.
It's not the best look for that motion, and so he decides not to throw out to Shakuir. And right if he makes that choice, he's got two free rushers coming down the pipe at him right, So he makes a choice again, I throwing this to Shakier. I'm going to try to create something out to my right, create something in space. He makes the first two rushers miss.
There's a third guy who's there, turns it back to the inside and I have to heave up a prayer ball, almost caught by Dalton Kincaid, And so Alan made an incredible throw and I highly high difficulty physical play. He probably could have made another high difficulty physical play and made that throw to Shakir in space. You're throwing the ball quite far behind the line of scrimmage. There's a long way to go for the first down. But again, the Bills have done this on four and three multiple
times over the last season. It's it's a designer play from Joe Brady, So I thought.
Yeah, you could.
You could have I think a different quarterback, a quarterback maybe less big of a moment, with less mahomes.
Fear on his back, playing in Kansas City, trying and get to the Super Bowl. Maybe he would have just trusted the structure to play a little bit more.
Maybe it would have just panic a little bit more, just strought it to some other guy.
You solve this problem for me. Alan tried to put the team on his back very.
Nearly did pretty much should have right, he should have caught the ball.
But it is interesting to think about that play designed to go to Sekir. What would have happened if the pass went to him.
That's all and entirely fair, and you back it up with video. I think it was Ryan Fitzpatrick, who kind of went at you and talked about the you know, you know the urgency of that moment when you have two free rushers kind of going at you, and you know you just kind of do what you can to try to make him play. What what's your reaction to kind of that portion of this conversation that Casey had two free pass rushers, that we were beaten down on Josh pretty quickly.
Now, Ryan de'stally right. Ryan's point is like, you Ben have never been in a pocket and experience those two free rushers.
So you think Alan had time to make this decision and the physical ability to make this throw. I don't think it fits, and I disagree right findamentally, It's one of those things where it's not like I said, it was a certain Coverridge sentences like no, actually, it's it's that coverage. It's like, oh shoot, like you've seen it right, I'm not seeing it right fitthite disagree about the amount of time Allen had and if he is physically capable
of making that throw. Most people are going to agree to fifth had an eleven year career as anipal quarterback.
I don't fall to that.
I don't know, my job is to watch Josh Allen's play. Didn't get to play.
They wasn't born as veg as Josh Allen, unfortunately.
But my job is to watch Josh.
Allen play and try to consider what could have happened on some plays, what should have happened on other plays.
And I tried to do my job as well as I can.
If you're like, hey, the NFL quarterbacks, that it could have happened, that it could have happened, all more power to you. I don't know.
I've watched Josh Allen make them really spectacular.
Throws, including the throw he did make on that play, so I think the thrown maskings to make as well within his physical capabilities. But it's a disagreement between two guys whose job it is to try to figure out.
How football should have gone. And Fitz does really good work. I try to do really good.
Work as well.
Fair enough, fair enough, all right, moving on here.
So my basketball life in the nineties specifically was steeped in two teams. One was the Utah Jazz and the other was the New York Knicks. And the one guy that had in common that took rings off their fingers every single year team, like was Mike was Michael Jordan? What is the Patrick Mahomes analogy? I've heard it all
day Tiger on Sundays Messy. If you're a soccer fan, the Jordan one feels The Jordan one feels the most on point to me, because the bigger the moment was with Mike, the bigger that his performance was, and he always seemed to get it done in the NBA Finals where he won all six times he was there, And the bigger the moment is for Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, the bigger their answers are to the questions that are asked, what's the best Patrick Mahomes analogy that you've heard or
maybe you have one of your own.
I like the Jordan one, and it's tough for me.
I don't have a great frame of reference because first the I'm I'm a younger guy, but then I also I grew up in like a football only household, and so a lot of times the crossbod analogies to me are based off just like my very like you know, skin deep understanding of some of these players.
I do think the Jordan one, where.
There's a sense of inevitability there's a sense of this man equals championship, and the route to which he gets there may not look the way we always expected to look. And he had these multiple errors of his career, but the guy's equal to championship.
He was that caliber of player in those caliber of moments.
I think that's probably the best sport.
The sport one that comes to mind.
Playing the homes just like playing quicksand right, I mean, it's like playing a black hole.
Okay, you can do stuff in the middle.
We all know the end of the story, right, it's the inevitability of there's just a force that draws you in to a game that's happened through the fourth quarter.
That's a one score.
Game where you've gotten love and banged up, and they've got a lot bit banged up, and you've gotten your stops and they've gotten the stops and you've gotten your lucky breaks. But Patrick Malves is just gonna lean on you a little bit too much for a little bit too long, and eventually you're gonna break.
Right.
This Bill's team man three and a half minutes left down by three. The Bills.
If you interviewed every single Buffalo Bill and you say Hey, if I give you three and a half minutesest in the game, all three timeouts, you're down by three, you have the ball.
Where you take that?
They all would have said, yes, I guess it says it.
Yes, we could do it. We have the ball, we have controlled the clock. We're gonna go beat this team. And then they did it.
And that's that's credit to the chief defense.
And obviously the Chiefs often fixed them the first time. That's necessary, but that's what it feels like to play the Chiefs. You can even get that situation that you were hoping for. We have we have a chance to go win the game as the clock expires, and yet still you just can't escape the poll of these guys.
It's very challenging.
So you'll know this was was Peyton Owen six against Brady? Was that the number? He was oho and six before he was able to break through?
I think, so I'll do all check right now, I would.
Say, okay, yeah, something like that.
So instead of making a crossboard analogy, maybe we can just stick with the NFL, because I need to kick the tires with you on where you're at with Josh now. I mean, I said on Friday, Ben I'm riding with the Bills. I feel like it's Josh's time. Then I said, I fully anticipate sitting on my couch Sunday evening shaking my head, going you idiot, which is exactly what happened. But I have a hard time believing in twenty eight
he's never gonna be able to get it done. Today, where are you at, simply with Josh Allen?
Yeah, so it was six straight and absolutely I really hope when I sit down with my daughter, sit down with my kids, oh, you know whatever, it's twenty years from now, I'm going to be able to look back.
At the history of NFL football and circle the Josh Allen MVP season and circle the Josh Allen Super Bowl victory and say, you know, that is an accurate reflection.
Of the quarterback that I watched. But the reality is that.
We have gotten the best Josh Allen season he's ever seen. It was the lowest interception rate in the season.
Of his entire career.
Not only was it his best season in terms of not taking sacks in his career, it's from a sack of pressure dropback ratio, It's probably the best season for avoiding sacks that we've ever seen. We just got the best Josh Allen we've ever seen, and Lamar is probably gonna win MVP, and Josh isn't going to win a super Bowl. And so it is my firm belief for Josh, and I said it's about Lamar after he lost to Allan.
My firm belief is that a quarterback this good, it's going to eventually win a Super Bowl.
Right that.
If I understand anything about football, it says the quarterback kind of sets the ceiling in your floor. And these guys say extremely high feelings and extremely high floors. The problem is that fifteen is just sitting on top of this conference right now. Mahomes and the Chiefs are are they they feeling again that immovable object, that black hole, that inevitability. It's the sort of thing where the dam
doesn't break until it does. Right, You accumulate hits, and you try, and you try, and you fail, and you fail again and again and again. But at some point, you know, Ravens last year had the home game, you know, Builds this year, we're a better.
Team on paper.
At some point somebody gets it up, breaks to beat the Chiefs the way that Joe Burrow beat the Chiefs and then the dam breaks, Right, Joe Burrow beat the Chiefs in the playoffs in twenty twenty one. We are still talking about it four years later, right, Bengals happened? Done? Anything really has a team since then. But once you get that one wain, once you get that metal around your chest, you ascend above the feeling of it.
You say, Okay, we know we can beat these guys in January football. So I believe joshing Room win a Super Bowl, I really do.
I believe with Marston went a Super Bowl, I really do. I sure would like if it already happened, because we're starting to get into our late twenty and you know, you know, hits so to accumulate, but they're too good. Of course, I think it's gonna happen. Yeah.
And the other thing is you reference not just Mahomes being on top of the conversation, but you know Jordan late in his career, in his thirties, You're like, all right, he's going to go away at some point. Mahomes is twenty nine and ultimately for teams to win NBA championships when Mike was it, you know, in his heyday are
at his prime. They had to wait for him to trade his basketball shoes for baseball cleats for two years, which allowed a lajo On in the Rockets to go win a couple of championships, and both the Knicks and the Jazz blew it with their opportunity when Mike was you know, Mike was not playing basketball.
Is it going to be something similar? Like if Mahomes is healthy.
Every single year, he's only a year older than Josh, you know, are are they going to have to wait for him to either get hurt or go away for a while in your opinion?
I don't think so.
I mean, that might end up being what happens.
Right, you end up getting a gifty Mahomes, Right, Buccaneers and chief Super Bowl when that game came, Like, maybe.
That's what ends up being.
But again, like this year kind of should have been in the air. They didn't have great basket backs off the left side. You know, Kelsey is starting to really fall off terms of his efficacy. The Chiefs are going to roll in the next year and a lot of the same problems how they have this year. And so this is this is a beatable team.
It is we have to remember in the NFL playoffs, we.
Played best of one series, right, we don't play best to sevens. You think about the way that you can kind of accumulate some confidence, you can you can experiment and find some weaknesses in an NBA series, playing seven games in an MLB series, different pictures, different looks. In the NFL, we played best of one, And so when the Chiefs beat the Bills like this, we say, all right, yeah, the Chiefs are never going to lose.
Man a lot of.
Universes where the Chiefs lose this game, right, calls go a different way on fourth and one, you know, the fourth dunkin k catches the pass that we have to remember that even though we get that outcome, since it is the best of one series, it feels finite field of one hundred percent yes, zero percent no, when that's not necessarily the case. And so I think they can beat the Chiefs without something drastic or dramatic happening to Ma Holmes.
With that said, and something draftic.
Or dramatic happens to Homes, yeah, you can bet the Bills and the Ravens are a meeting going to shove every chip they have all in because that's that's the best window that they've had quite some.
Time before we get to Commander's Eagles. I'm just gonna ask you, I'm I'm not. I never have been. I don't do the job as a blame the refs guy unless it's completely egregious. And it's really easy to say that because Travis Kelcey is dating Taylor Swift. Roger Goodell wants the attention continue to continue for his league. It's not like they need it. I don't believe in conspiracy theories.
I'm not a wormhole guy either, but you see the fourth down that the potentially buffalo should have been rewarded a first down, and a lot of people been are simply just drawing the line, and I think it's kind of lazy.
But is there any meat on that phone in your opinion?
No, I think that what people really underestimate.
Then are a few things in my opinion.
But first is that man, if the Lease were rigging gains, I promise you they'd they would like the Bills to have attended the Super Bowl the way public sent minutes right now with the excitement of getting kind of Josh Allen that Super Bowl win, and you know, oh, contender to the chief and think about the amount of content we would manufacture it if Allen finally knocked off the Mahomes and they went they beat the Eagles in the Super Bowl, there's a new king of the AFC Alan
Mahomes burrow, Lamar, how do you rank up? Like my problem? If you from a content perspective, like a three P is cool, but it doesn't last nearly as long as the new champion Bills with their first Super Bowl up as a franchise. So one, if we weren't riggad things, we'd we'd be doing it the other way. The second thing is that's really hard to rag things man like you think it wouldn't have gone out right now if if the Chiefs were very clearly getting it a favorable
calls intentionally. Now, I think that the Chiefs play a lot of primetime games, and a lot of people watch those primetime games and see them much more than they see the Carolina Panthers play, and the Chicago Bears play, and then the Minnesota Vikings play.
And in those primetime games, the.
Chiefs, who have won seventeen straight one score games, it is an NFL record. Well, when you play seventeen one score games and you win them all. Yes, there's going to feel like an outsized number of calls that are benefiting you and you alone, and one score games. One play can make the difference. So we have a lot of televised games and a lot of one score games.
There's an availability by us here. More people have seen favorable calls through the Chiefs way, just because more people have watched the Chiefs than have watched any other team.
So to me, there's no credim to it.
But yeah, I mean, anytime we get a call, I get to ask for my mom, I get to ask for my brother in law, I got to text my cousin, I gets my buddy's trying to talk to him ten years because they all want to know what the NFL's got to do.
Rigaby's games.
A couple of local questions for you.
Andy Reid ties Don Shula second most Super Bowls of all time? Should they win the Super Bowl? What's that conversation sound like? And I'm not like, hey, what's his legacy? But he's got to be on the shortlist and one of the best to ever do this job.
Yeah, absolutely, And we and you know, we just spent a lot of time talking about Josh and what he can look like For Josh, we got to remember how we talked about Andy in the early two thousands, right with those Eagles teams, Andy can get it done. Andy's never going to be the guy in the postseason.
His teams consistently fail.
And now you watch him with the Chiefs, where you know, listen to those bills cues. They're running stuff we've never seen.
They're walking out with designer packages. We weren't prepared for thinking about all the Mahomes runs and the design runs they scored on the Chief's ability in recent postseasons to walk out just a couple of designer things on offense, a few things they installed just to beat you, just to make sure they get that fourth down, make sure they get that touchdout instead of a field goal.
And Ree has become one of.
The best postseason coaches of all time in terms of not just wins and appearances.
But how mes adjusting week over a week.
They have such a deep bag of options because of his long experience, and so absolutely he's going to be up there one of the best coaches of all time, certainly one of the most successful postseason coaches of all time. And he's a good story. He's a good cautionary tale that we should not use early career postseason success to define what a player's or a coach's career in the postseason is actually going to be.
What's fair to say about our guy, Dalton Kinkaid on that final throw?
What's fair to say?
Because I'm sure he's wearing it, man, knowing that kid, I'm sure he's depressed.
Yeah, I think he said extremely well himself. When the asked about after the game, he said, sucks a lot, Right, not much else to say, Oh, you know, the ball this way and if this happened, not.
Sucks a lot.
And you can even see him when he misses the catch watching the film back this morning. Not only does he miss it, when he sees the ball bounce past him, he does like a Looney Tunes cartoon, like his head snaps.
Over to it.
You see his eyes pop out of his helmet. He collapses on the ground. He couldn't believe it right, he saw the ball in the air for ages. He was just so confident he was going to get into basket catch. It's away from your frame, but still some sort of catch you expect to make in that moment. Kinkai was the first round pick for the Bills. They clearly wanted to have a tight end they could run the passing game. Three. You've seen that, not just with Travis Kelcey, but with
recent guys they came. Train McBride for the Cardinals, Brock Howers for the Raiders. He just has not worked out for the Bills. Kin Kate has not been a juicy enough guy with the ball in his hands. He's not been a consistent enough catch with the football that kind of entered the spread the wells passing game. So it's tricky, right, he's their starting tight end. He makes a couple of good plays from out of the course of the season,
but certainly he's I think underwhelmed relative expectation. And then in this moment, Yeah, sucks a lot that there's nothing to really say that that contextualizes that play. Besides, that was the worst thing that could have happened, and I feel terrible.
Moving over to Philly Washington, let's just start with a macro question about a kid who we watched out here in the PAC twelve footprint before he went to LSU and Jaden Daniels and you know the Commanders, what thirty three years between conference championship appearances.
And you know the Dan Snyder years.
I love the ESPN piece where he's like pissed that they're good.
I mean, oh good.
I mean talk about like there are very very few things in sports that we can come to a consensus on that might be the closest one that everybody's like, screw that, dude, But I feel really happy for that fan base. What does year one with Jayden under center say to you about what could be next for that organization for a decade plus?
Extremely pointed, extremely accurate, extremely smart, extremely tough, like we were just checking boxes. Man. And I remember when Stroud came into the postseason last year and I said, dude, like you get you get him a playoff game, Like that's such a good experience for the guy, just to field postings and football, Like they win that game, they get to go on the road to Kansas City, Like this is just an excellent building block for a young player.
With Jaden, you.
Get two World playoff games and he wins them both playing really excellent football the whole time.
He didn't even need the learning curve. Right. Oh, this is what postingson football is like. He kind of already walked in when some of that championship DNA and his blood. So check every single box for you. Now, you want to get a little bit more serious about your offensive line, right, which they played well this year and they probably punched a little bit above their weight, but left tackle still
a little bit of a question mark. You know, the left guard position struggled against the Eagles that they had their start, and the left guard right guard there the backup obviously the depths was really tested as well. And so you're gonna have to get a little more serious fout offensive line because even though you're gonna be a quick passing team, you really want to protect Jaden, who's
white thin, from accumulating additional hits. He's going to accumulate some because of how much he runs, so you really want to be careful about not putting too many on the pile. And so I get pretty serious fol offensive line. And then from a team like Horizon perspective, when Adam Peters and Dan Quinn sat down started planning out life with Jaden Daniels, you know, April May June.
Of this past year.
They said, all right, you know, one year horizon if the guy hits, and then maybe we draft the wide receiver, maybe we trade back a little bit. You know, maybe a year three we're signing big free agents. No, you accelerate the process, right, you are calling Key Higgen's agent tomorrow, right, best free agent that's available at wide receiver, and you're saying,
all right, what's the price tag? Because if we can if we can even date Jade Daniels with weapons, then we have the ability to really make a three year window here where he's extremely cheap relative to the market, but he's a franchise caliber quarterback and we could take some earner shots at winning this thing right and making a push in the NFC. N if he's not very strong,
it's spenser really isn't right lines losing coordinators. Eagles obviously played quite well the season, but Jail Hurts is a bit of a question mark long term for them. So yeah, if you you are in a position where you start shoving chips into the middle, and rightfully so is.
It's Philly the best team on paper and pro football. I mean, you reference Jalen Hurts and it seems like everybody talks about, all right, the two most important things you need in pro football elite quarterback, elite coach. And I feel like I here a lot of people questioned Nick Sirianni, and to your point, a lot of people don't believe Jalen is that guy. But what does that say about the roster that Howie Roseman's built around them?
Are they the best roster in pro football?
Question? After position her equal? It absolutely is.
It wasn't supposed to be.
They drafted outside their minds, right, I mean the value that they got from Quinna Mitchell and Cooper Degene both in the draft, Zack Ballons on a one year deals, but first team All Pro linebacker.
They obviously really well on a guy.
In Jalen, Carter, Nolan Smith, Milton Williams, Jordan Davis. These are all recent draft picks. Man like, they ran very hot in player acquisition. Now, usually the best team in football did exactly that, right, and you're hot for a couple of years and your call for a couple of
years and somebody else takes the crown. But how Rosen has now done this a few times where he's able to just quickly accumulate some talent plug a lot of a position with veteran stop gaps and with first year rookie starters, and all of a sudden bank you got yourself a contender. And so pass off the high rosman who has a very shrewd understanding of the risks to take where to invest. We're not to invest, how to double up and triple up on certain positions offensive line investment.
Eagles are constantly putting bodies there. It's been to their benefit. So yeah, I think the rosters have built extremely well.
The best team.
Goes in to write some more play calling stuff. You know. The Eagles are built to win a very specific style of game. They need to have the league. They need to run the football. They can't fall behind too much. There's weaknesses to the team on the rockstrong paper. Yeah, Sam, the cern most sounded in the league.
All right, Ben, before I said you lose, the early line is Casey minus one point five the over runners forty nine point five. So Vegas likes Kansas City, but only slightly. What is what's the Ben Solac very early take on the Super Bowl that we'll see in a couple of weeks.
I think Chiefs favorite is correct.
I think we're going to see this clolls around two and a half, maybe two and a half with you know, kind of juice toward the Eagles or what have you. But the Chiefs are a team that's been here much more a much many more times. They've been here before that to beat Eagles a couple of years ago in Mahomes, you have a quarterback, you cross a lot more in a trailing game.
Script than you do the Eagles.
The thing that I keep coming back to with the Eagles that we have not seen this team trail in the second half, you know, like we're talking about trail the fourth quarter, trail by multiple scores in the third quarter, really have a negative game script. We haven't seen this since Week four as the pain the Buccaneers. Everybody was hurt, right they know a J Brown or devasics ment, no Lyn Johnson and they lost. Since then, it's been one
score deficits in the third quarter. They's one such a good job controlling the clock and winning on their game script that we don't really know what this team looks like if they could throw their way out of a hole. Which is a crazy thing to say in the last week of January, but it's true.
We have not seen that from this version.
Of the team. And so if you tell me Eagles are up twenty eight to fourteen with fourteen minutes plus in the game, I'm like, oh, man, Chiefs can still win this thing.
You reverse that.
Chie's up fourteen to fourteen minutes plus. I have no idea if the Eagles have the ability to operate the offense right, if they can't live with the safe one Barkley carries and make sure they get to second and five, so on and so forth. So I've worked out about the Eagles.
I think the Chiefs the of the right team to be favored.
But hey, if Eagles end up getting that first half lete, they can make sure that Mames only gets two three per cent and salt that game. Base. Give me a good.
One, Ben, you're the man.
Appreciate the time and ignore all of them. I know you know this, but you know I got your back, buddy. So great work and we'll chat soon.
Thank you, appreciate it. You have going all right.
The great Ben solac Over at ESPN released what I thought to be was a very fair video of the options Josh Allen had on that fourth and five, namely, the Khalil Shakier option as they put him in motion, and when you look at it, he did have a
ton of space in front of him. Now, Josh had a couple of free rushers right in his face, and I just aim so gutted for Daldon king k But Porty, you have some Now, let's make sure we're not doing what the Jazz did after they lost to the Clippers, and they're like, oh, by the way, Rudy was hurt and Donovan had a sore ankle, but you have some context on what Dalton's been dealing with.
Yet, Yeah, well, obviously he dropped the pass. He was in position to make that play. It's it's no excuse for that. But yeah, Dalton's been He's been playing with torn pcl and and some legit image to his knee for parts of the playoffs. So he's been He's been playing through some stuff, which is no surprise if you know anything about Daltonkon Katie's actually kind of a pretty unfortunate injury history. He just happens to play through it all,
which I mean some players end up doing that. But that's part of the context to his postseason.
Oh, Bishop got his first starts and played well. Actually saved the touchdown at the beginning with a tackle on I think it was Kareem Hunt, but got trucked a little bit at the end.
There