The Fifth Hour: BENNY VS. THE PENNY (Championship Round)

hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now in the air everywhere, and it is another weekend upon us, The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller and Danny G Radio, and it is the next to last edition of Benny Versus the Penny. So let's strike up the band. Welcome players, You're welcome, Are you up? It's time now Penny versus the Penny.

But then here we are Danny G. Championship Weekend in the NFL, and there are just three games left on the NFL calendar, and then we go into off season hibernation mode when the rumor rules the day. But we got a couple of games on Sunday which we will break down. But as you know, Danny, we must look back before we look ahead. So we have to look back to the divisional round. I told you the Penny was not gonna function like that. Two weeks in a row. I knew it. I called it. Yeah, I got smoked

by the Penny the in the wild card round. Uh not not quite as good last week for the Penny. Yeah. And we've always joked about the Pro Bowl that it's turning into flag football, and now it really is going to be flag football. So the Penny we're off next week. So are we gonna do like a flag podcast? Yeah? I'm not sure. Should we handicap some of the gazzy things the NFL has come up with, like like are they doing like a potato sack raise? Like what what do the thing? I know they have a bunch of

nonsense that there they're doing. It's all like for TikTok to. It's like the NFL is like they just are fully admitting, like they're they've given up. The players don't want to play football. The players a bunch of pussy willows and they don't want to play. And so I get it. I understand why they don't want to play. So now they're like, fuck it, We'll just we'll just promote the little video vignettes for for the Internet, for the kids. Gen z Man, we gotta get them watching. I can't

wait for the ultimate frisbee game. Yeah, that's that's must see TV, right, But but that's next weekend. We gotta get through the championship games this weekend. But let's look back at the Division A round now. The while of the card round, which began the playoffs, I got crushed. I only got one game, right, I went one four and one on wild card weekend. After a great regular season, I took it in the shorts. In wild card round,

the penny went four one and one. The greatest week the penny had all year was on wild card weekend. But then last week the divisional round, there were four games played and I bounced back. I went three and one against the spread. So Benny's record three and one. The penny went too and two against the number, So that's five. You lose money on that. So there's two

ways to look at this, Danny. Either overall, where I'm only five hundred in the playoffs and the penny is six three and one, or that we've had two weeks of the playoffs and I won one week in the penny one one week, so we're even. I like that six win record a little better. Yeah, but last week, if you took my picks, you won seventy your bets solid. You took the penny, you lost a little bit of money. You gotta be the tipping point right here. Yeah, this

will be big this weekend. So the Bengals dominated last week. I had that. I had Cincinnati winning in a close game Jacksonville. I got a wee bit lucky on that Mahomes got hurt, but I also got the backdoor cover with Mahomes playing in the second half. The game I completely got wrong was the Giants. They got blown to smith of Reens by the Eagles, and the forty Niners did take care of business against the Cowboys. So that's how it went last week. But now we look ahead.

There's just two games, so this is not gonna be a long winded podcast. Would be relatively short, but I am very for post dandy, so I think I can milk this for at least a solid half hour of content. So we'll see. My heart will be happy to hear that. Yeah, they need that. They need that sweet spot, right. It's like Ken Levine said, people do thirty minutes on the treadmill bend. We had kenn on you do thirty minute podcast. That's all. You gotta gotta be at least twenty five minutes,

my man. That's all though. That's it, man. You get out of bed, you do twenty five minutes before you get out of that bedroom. I like, well, no, no, that's actually not true. All right. Uh so let's get to it right now. Championship Weekend Benny Versus the Penny and the early game in the NFC Sad Francisco and Philadelphia. It's on Fox with Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen. They have the call. The Eagles opened up a three and a half point favorite. The Birds are a two and

a half point favorite. The money is pretty even on this game. There's a slight lean to the home team in Philadelphia at Lincoln Financial Field, mostly sunny, and a kickoff temperature of forty eight degrees in South Philly for this one San Francisco. You look at some of the numbers on this game. Overall this season, the third team in six against the spread, the Eagles nine and nine, So they have not been that kind to the gambling

market there, just nine and nine against the number. Kyle Shanahan in the playoffs has been a big baller in the playoffs, here's seven and one against the spread in eight playoff games, and that is actually tied with Doug Peterson, the Jacksonville coach, for the top against the spread record of any coach anywhere in the Super Bowl era minimum three games. He's also seven and oh against the spread. Shanahan is in playoff games prior to the Super Bowl,

for whatever that's worth. And San Francisco has covered five straight games. That is the longest active streak in the NFL. But wait, there's more. Brock Purty has started seven games, including the playoffs, and you talk about going hog wild, Brock party six and one against the spread, and in his career as a starter, all of them as a favorite. That is tied for the fifth longest favorite streak to begin a career by any quarterback since the merger. That

will end this weekend. As the Niners are a road dog san Francisco's. They won twelve straight overall, their ten and two against the spread in that stretch, and Kyle Shanahan's got a sneaky good record as a road underdog nineteen and ten against the spread overall on the road and has been even better of lately. Of late last fifteen games, the Niners are twelve and three against the spread. So the numbers are are pretty good in favor of

San Francisco. But for Philadelphia it's there's some good news there as well. Jalen Hurts nine two and one against the spread as a home favorite in his career. Seven times he has been a single digit home favorite, and the Eagles are seven and all against the spread in those games. So I'm giving you a lot of numbers. This is paralysis by analysis, but there's tons of numbers. The Eagles against the spread at home when they play teams from the West Coast, they have not done very well.

I know this goes back to different vintages of the Eagles, but they're three and twelve against the spread at home Philly last fifteen games against teams that have traveled two thousand miles and more so those West Coast teams. The pick is in though, and I am going to take the San Francisco forty Niners. That's the big ticket here, and here's why San Francisco wins this game. With Nick Bosa, Fred Warner and that front seven limiting the Eagle running game,

that's the secret saucer. The forty Niners had the NFL's number one run d fence that was tied actually with the Titans for number one, allowing three point four yards per carry. That is the ace in the hole here. Uh. And you look at the dominance of Jalen Hurts and you want to obviously force him to do what he's not particularly great at. And if you look at the run pass separation, he's a better runner than he is

a thrower. So have him have to complete passes on third down and deal with the stress of a close game. The Eagles had an easy time as they turned the Giants into an omelet and actually not even an I was scrambled eggs last week. It is a different world, a different world with the Niners defense. Christian McCaffrey and Elijah Mitchell to to me going in this game are the folks. Now. The Eagles defense is pretty good too, I mean really good. In some areas they're actually better

than the forty Niners. The run defense is not one of those areas. So statistically, based on what has happened now necessarily what's going to happen. That's why you play the game, and it's it's a matter of who does well in the moment. But the Eagles defense, they're one of their weak spots in the NFL against the run, so that ain't great. And so the Niners can matriculate the ball down the field, keep it close to the vest.

The key here is you want a close game fourth quarter, obviously, because Philadelphia has not had a lot of those when they've had all their guys play. The thing that does give me pause is whether or not I keep going back to Brock Purty. Is he going to be able to get the job done now? Purdy has been ridunculously good in back to back player because he wasn't great last week, but he was good enough. He was better than Dak Prescott in order to win the game last week.

And if you look at some of the numbers here in the second half and some of the statistical breakdowns, and again a lot of is paralysis by analysis and all that, but when you look at the numbers and see how how good Purty has been against Seattle, which isn't a very good defense, and and then also against the Cowards, which do have a pretty good defense, it does give you more confidence that things are gonna work out. Actually, I wanted to bring up some of the stats here.

I want to bring those up right now, because why not. We only have two games to break down, so we can do that right now. And uh let's see here, brock Purty in the second half of these two playoff games that he's played has been insane. He's sixteen of twenty one, two hundred seventy yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a one fifty passer rating. So that's uh yeah, one one fifty is the passer rating. Sixteen of twenty one though passing, so that seems like that will get

it done. And uh yeah, but what do I know? Anyway, that is it. I'm gonna take the forty Niners twenty three and the Philip Delphi Eagles. I'm sorry, Fat's in Philly. They will score twenty points Niners over the Eagles. And no surprise here, the penny lands on heads. That means going with the home team, big bend, Philly in the house. It is Philly's house. The Eagles are gonna win. Well, the Eagle fans will will make the pilgrimage, as will

the forty Niner fans to Arizona. So there will be the people from Philadelphia travel well some more forty Niner porn for brock Purty. The Niners in that last game against the Cowboys, brock Purty had The Niners had nine offensive possessions pretty had a completion of sixteen or more yards on seven of them against that Dallas defense. Of the ten in completions he had against the Cowboys, four of them he threw the ball away and two of

them were tipped. So my computer like brain tells me that he really only had four natural incompletions where he fucked up. The other times were throwaways or passes were tipped at the line of scrimmage. So we'll see what happens in this NFC Championship game. Now we get to the late game on Championship Sunday, Cincinnati at King City. It's on CBS with Jim Nance and Tony Romo. They have the call on this one, and the Chiefs opened

up a two and a half point favorite. Now it is interesting on this game because early in the week the line shifted back to Cincinnati. They were favored by one, and as we are doing this, you don't know when we were we do this penny versus the Penny as we're doing it right now. The Chiefs are a one

point favorite. The money on this fifty eight percent of the action is in favor of the road team, So the public does like Cincinnati in this game, a lean towards the Bengals at Arrowhead Stadium, cloudy and eighteen degrees at kickoff. I was on back on Thursday. I was on with my guys on six ten Sports in Kansas City.

My my buddy Josh, He informed me, I did not know this technology existed, Danny, but he's the sideline reporter for the Chiefs and he's a buddy of mine, and he told me, you know it's gonna be very called. Eighteen degrees at kickoff. This guy's wandering around the field that arrow had. I said, what the hell, what do you? What do you do there? How many layers do you have? And he said the Chiefs hooked him up. They actually have jackets which have a returned are you I'm not

I wasn't away. They have jackets that have a rechargeable battery in them. I have never heard of this, right, Yeah, we live in California. We don't have to worry about that. So this jacket like it's it's it's actually not that pricey. I thought it would be a lot more. It's like, you know, it's a hundred and fifty two hundred bucks. It's expensive. But there's this company that makes it, and I think they're based in in the Midwest, but they

probably should be if they're not. Uh, it's really cool, Like these are like nice looking regular jackets you would never know and you just you can recharge the battery in the battery last like ten hours, so you're like walking around with a remote heating blanket. Exactly. How cool is that? And they have they have heated socks that have a battery in them, and they have gloves that are like that as well. Boy, if I lived in a really nasty weather place, i'd get those. I'd be fine.

I wouldn't mind. The weather wouldn't be that bad. We could get those for our girls, even here in California, so they could quit their whining. Exactly. You know what I'm gonna send you. Hold on a second, I mean, yeah, said, you'll send you the website. I'm dying. My girl dies when it's thirty nine degrees outside. Yeah, it was thirty nine this week. Actually, I'll I'm gonna send you the

link right here, click this over here. And they're not a sponsor, but if they want to be a sponsor, will be more than happy to take some sponsorship dollars. But yeah, that's the place. Yeah, because I said, yeah, maybe I should get the they have women's that's a men's. I sent you the link to the men's but they have about women's stuff too, and yeah, yeah, I'm looking at it right now. Yeah this doesn't that just look

like normal stuff? Yeah? Not bad looking? Yeah, I mean it looks fine and and uh yeah, anyway, so there you go. They got all kinds of heated, heated crapola there. So a lot of vests, a lot of I'm not a big vest guy, they have a lot of vests there, which is which is really not my thing. We're asking for my phone number for Should I do it? Uh? I think you should give your Social Security number instead of your phone. I think that would be better my

Twitter handle, Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Alright. Anyway, so it's gonna be cold. The point is gonna be cold in Kansas City. The chiefs, as we said, one point favorite some of the numbers on this Cincinnati, Kansas City game Cincinnati thirteen and five this season against the spread Kansas City seven and eleven, which is good if you need a late night snack, but not if that's your record against the spread. Kansas City eleven losses against the spread.

That is the most by any team entering the conference championship game in the Super Bowl era. And check this out. This is a fun fact you can impress your friends with this weekend. It is the worst against the spread percentage by any team entering the game since the nineteen nineties seven Green Bay Packers with Brett Farve a generation ago. So that's how far back you have to go to find a team that was worse for gamblers that got

the championship weekend the Nackers. Now, none of the previous five teams that that have had cover percentages below four hundred, like the Chiefs entering the conference championship game have gone on to win the Super Bowl, and only the seven Green Bay Packers have even reached the Super Bowls. So there's a random odd gambling fact for you that this has not happened. A team is bad against the gambling market as the Chiefs since the Brett Farve Packers twenty

six years ago. That is a generation generations twenty five years and so that's how far back you have to go. Patrick Mahomes, he was briefly a home underdog. He is not now. If this changes, remember that he's only been a home underdog one time in his career. He lost by four points as a two and apt point home dog against Buffalo in Week six. Entering this week, Patrick

Mahomes has been favored in seven of home starts. That is the second highest percentage of any quarterback with at least twenty five starts in the Super Bowl era, obviously including the playoffs. The only one we actually used this on the radio show the other night, Danny, the only one that's been better percentage wise than Mahomes. You want to take a guess on who it is, Danny, want to throw a name out just to see if you

can just throw something against the wall here percentage wise. Yeah, this guy was favored in sixties six of sixties seven starts at home. Oh wow, Uh, let's see Joe Montana. That's a great guest. Not Joe Montesse. Actually before Montana from the Dallas Cowboys. Roger stab Yeah, he was favored in sixties six of sixties seven starts. That is the highest winning percentage at home or the highest percentage of home starts favorite. I should say the didn't win all

those games or else that boy. Kansas City has been favored in fourteen straight playoff games entering this week, and as of right now they are favorites, so that'd be fift straight. That is the longest streak of any team in this modern Super Bowl era that we're in right now. And mahomes the streak, it appears, will continue. He's never been a playoff underdog. He's the first and only quarterback in the Super Bowl Ear to be favored in each

of his first twelve playoffs starts. So I'm giving a lot of information here, um, but you know, take it with a gran of salt if you want. Kansas City when they played Cincinnati back in Week thirteen, the Chiefs were a two and a half point home or two and half point road favorite in that game when they met there. Now, Kansas City is a home they were at home down, not the only favorite by one. So this doesn't doesn't change that much. It's a three three

and a half point swing. But if you look at the Bengals and what they've been doing for the gambling market. Cincinnati twenty one and five their last twenty six games, including the playoffs, and they have been stunningly good when not laying at least seven points, seven straight covers nineteen and one, the Bengals record their last twenty when not laying at least seven points, and Joe Burrow eighteen and one against the spread in that span, So there's there's

a lot of crazy stats on this game. The Bengals have been a great road team. They've covered five straight road games heading into this matchup at Arrowhead on Sunday, and the pick is in. I know you're you're dying to find out. It's gonna change your life in amazing ways unless it doesn't. But I am taking the Cincinnati Bengals to get back to the Super Bowl back to back and belly to belly, and I'm gonna ride the healthy quarterback. That was the thing that pushed me over

the edge with Cincinnati Patrick Mahomes high ankle sprain. I can't get past that. That is the point of demarcation. These teams are ridiculously close. I'm not picking the Bengals because Joe Burrow has never lost the Kansas City. I'm not doing that that these teams are separated by really a hair here, a hare there. But to me, the bum ankles the thing. You bet on the healthier quarterback, Joe Burrow, and you're right it out. Burro has also dominated against the blitz and that is a staple of

the Kansas City defensive attack. They are known to blitz as much as anybody in the NFL, and Joe Burrow has been able to exploit that on a regular basis. If that does continue, now, I am betting on the Bengals in part because he's the healthier quarterback, but just for s and giggles, and I'll throw the curse at the benbino out. Do you know, even Danny I didn't know. I had to look this up. Who is the backup quarterback? God forbid? Joe Burrow gets hurt in the a f

C Championship game. Uh Marcus tuliasa sopo. That is a wonderful guess. Unfortunately it is not correct. And also not David Klingler, which is another great name from the past. Uh oh, the great Sevans. Uh No, no, it is somebody named Brandon Allen, an old Arkansas razorback who he played for the Rams briefly, the great Brandon Alan, who has been let's see here, he's been waived once twice,

three times. Uh, let's see here. He was a COVID quarterback for Cincinnati, has been waived three times, claimed off waivers. He's I mean, there's I'm looking at his transactions here and he's had a lot of moving around a lot of moving around there. But he is the backup quarterback for Cincinnati. So the high ankle sprain, though, I've seen this a lot over the years, and it's always been at least a month and a half injury, even if

it's a minor injury. So the only way that this does not work out for Cincinnati is if the Chiefs are full of crap and they are blowing smoke here and it's not actually high ankle sprain. And I do realize that the Chiefs are gonna drug up Mahomes and he'll be on all kinds of painkillers and all kinds of gobbledegook and what your McCall it chemicals to get

him through the game. Also, Kansas City, one of the reasons they have not been a great gambling team is they've typically played one good half and then one so so half. That usually does he in here, So I am gonna take the guys from the land of the Skyline Chili shout out, Justin in Cincinnati and the ben Gals back to back, Holy Boom er Ossias and Sam Wish Batman do the Ikey Shuffle. Bengals and the Chiefs. Twenty four will be your final What are your radio

friends in Kansas City gonna think about that pick? I'm gonna be banned from my radio appearance, Danny, you might have to replace me every Thursday morning. I don't know if you can handle the paycheck on that, Danny, I don't know if you can handle that. I'm gonna flip the penny here. I figured there would have to be at least one agreement out of the two games. The penny also going with the Bengals. Okay, so it does

come down to Philadelphia and San Francisco. That will be the deciding point as to how we are doing in week number three. Hello hello, hello uh some some fun facts. Got a couple of minutes left and so so some fun facts hitting in the championship weekend. Andy Reid, if the Chiefs do win, and I'm wrong and the penny is wrong. Andy Reid will become the ninth head coach in NFL history to appear in at least four Super Bowls. And if the Chiefs win on Sunday, read will pass

Tom Landry by. I mean, these are Tom Landry's the name when we were kids, Danny, and this is like Tom Landry. You can't pass Tom Landry by. But if the Chiefs win, Andy Reid will be second in playoff wins by a head coach in NFL history. Only Bill Belichick has more wins than Andy Reid if he wins

on Sunday. And to think, when I was doing local radio in l a back way back, I'm gonna date myself if I say when Andy Reid was an assistant with the Green Bay Packers and he got booked on the show and I had no idea who he was. He was like, he wasn't even a coordinator for the Packers, and Mike Holmgren was the coach in Green Bay, and the producer booked him and said, oh yeah, this guy is gonna be the coach in Philadelphi got hired in Philadelphia. Said okay, well, we're in l A. He's always an

l A guy. I said, Okay, it's an l A guy. So we had Andy d We just talked about like Tommy's cheeseburgers and things like that, and we didn't even really talk about football. And now to think that that guy has become possibly the second winning his coach in playoff histories mind blowing to me. It's craziness. But what did he say? Do you remember what Andy Reid said about cheeseburgers in l A? Oh? Yeah, I know he was.

He was goofing a round. Yeah, he mentioned Tommy's and you know, growing up in l A and going to high school and what it was like, and you know, he talked about coming back, and I I think he still has a house in Dana Point in Orange County. UM, so kind of in the area, far away but not too far. It was halfway between l A and San Diego. And so I think he still comes out to California in the off season for for a couple of months

or so. Um. On the other side, Zach Taylor. If the Bengals win, he's gonna become the third head coach in NFL street to get to two Super Bowls within the first four seasons. The only other ones to do that are Mike Tomlin and Joe Gibbs about that the old hail to the Redskins coach, so you've got that working, um, and there's all kinds of other numbers, but I think get out caw hard. Was it for you to pick the Bengals in Chiefs which a lot of people are calling,

and pick them? Yeah, Well, it basically is it's a one point game, so it's almost essentially it's a it's a pick him. Now that that was that was difficult, but not It's actually not as hard for me as the game because I don't think Mahomes is gonna be right. And if you've got my homes at like seventy five or seventy and you've got Burrow, I'm on the side of on the side of Burrow. So um. But the Philadelphia game because of brock Purty and he hasn't really

played on the road. The only road games he played was against the Raiders and that was kind of a Niner home game, and then Seattle, which isn't particularly great, so he hasn't really played a lot of road games. So that that was kind of difficult, but um, that's that's it. Anything to promote Danny. You want to promote your book, your movie, your TV show, anything you want to promote their Well, it's Friday, so yeah, I'll be on with the Covino and Rich this afternoon having fun

from two to four pm Pacific time. No, you should have the nervous hearts outstanding. All right, we will be back in the podcast dojo for another fifth hour on a Saturday. Have a great rest of your day. Good luck. Remember I'm telling you who I like. You pick who you want, but I give you my information. Good luck, and enjoy that Super Bowl, which will be a rematch of a couple of years ago. Forty Niners in chiefs. We saw that matchup. No no, no, it's gonna be

the Eagles and Bengals. No no, no, no, no no, no no no. All right, talk to you next time. We'll catch you later. Skater gotta murder. I gotta go