The Fifth Hour: "Packers Choke" Mail Bag

a curse. It is a blessing because when you have wild Card playoff games on a Saturday, and you don't have a radio show on a Saturday, you can come in on an early Sunday morning and provide some commentary on the plus Now, we will get to the mailbag later on, which is a staple of the Fifth Hour podcast. Nothing like Ask Ben, nothing at all like Ask Ben. But we will begin with a couple of mini Malar monologues on what we witnessed in the NFL wild Card

opener on Saturday. We're gonna start with the late game. I was gonna start with the Ram game. I was like, ah, I'll just do the Ram game. So they had halftime of the Packer Bears game. It looked like there would be no reason to bring that game up. It was headed toward blowout city and then they played the second half, So we're gonna start with that game. We're gonna start with that game. It was not a gigantic upset. The Packers were only a one point favorite. I took Green

Bay on benny versus the penny. That was the right side. I didn't know they were choking dogs, but they turned out to be choking dogs. Oh my god. Do you know how in competent you have to beat to blow an eighteen point lead in the NFL playoffs? They did it anyway. Packers kicker Brandon McManus is the one that etched his name on the side of the bathroom wall of special team meltdowns in that playoff game on Saturday night there at Soldier Field in Chicago. McManus who's been around.

This is not his first trip to the circus, and he experienced a reversal of fortune. Missed two field goals and an extra point. The Packers ended up blowing a twenty one to three halftime lead. They lose a very memorable NFL playoff game thirty one twenty seven to kick off the wild card round. There So the Chicago Bears

win a playoff game and advance. But the better story is in the losing locker room, and that is where we will begin good jumping off point, the question kicker Brandon McManus costing the Packers seven points in a game they lost by four points, that epic collapse in Chicago. Is this game entirely on his shoulders as is being reported? So I have on this one dollar store guy named Earl and ring doorbell camera, and we will combine all of these things together and we are going to win

a podcast award. I don't think we're cool enough to win one of those, and we don't suck up to enough people, so I don't know that's gonna happen. But a using malormath, and that's the only math we use on the Fifth Hour podcast. Brandon McManus on the Mallard pie chart gets seventy five percent of the blame pie. And yes, kickers aren't football players, they're idiot kickers, hired mercenaries with one job and a very fragile mind. I

get that. However, However, here's the thing, the low information box score bandit, as we like to call him. They'll see Jordan Love's three hundred and twenty three yards and four touchdowns and want to give him a full pardon and a parade. You can't blame Jordan Love. He had four touchdowns and no interceptions and three hundred twenty three yards.

You don't know ball if you blame him. Not so fast, my friend, because on the Mallard Show scorecard, Jordan Love gets a hefty slice of guilt cheese Fondu, guilt cheese fondu. Why not one, not two, not three, but four four straight possessions in the middle part of that game, punt punt, punt punt in the meat of the game. That is offensive paralysis. Now, Jordan Love went from a butcher knife in the first half to a dollars store butter knife

after halftime. First half chef's kiss, absolute chef's kiss second half. It looked like he popped a melatonin at intermission and needed a blankie. Under fifty percent completions in the second half, shrinking like a cheap sweater. You don't blow a twenty one to three lead, you win the turnovers to nothing and still lose unless you and your quarterback are performing mensa level and competence. Now, add on, the Packers did

have not one, not two, three, four four fumbles. They recovered all of them, sure, but those are half turnover, so that's four fumbles each a half a turnover. They usually stop a drive, so that's like two turnovers. It's like tripping over your own luggage while running to the gate. So McManus again lit the match. However, Jordan Love poured the gasoline on top. Now page two at the end of the what is this the seventh season? I believe it?

Oh my god, where does the time go? Matt LeFleur, Green Bays coach seven years and his team again showing a lack of moxie like my dog late in the game. There the composure in big moments in a playoff game. So the question cheesehead fans want Mattlefleir fired. They want him sent to a war tribunal after the Packers choked it away in Chicago to be eliminated from the NFL plauffs. What are the chances that this happens? What are the

chances that matt LeFleur is Gonzo? All Right, So the Mallor sportsbook odds at plus four hundred, that is a twenty percent chance that the Flur gets whacked. It's not zero hope, but not exactly def con won either. It's a two hundred hitter in baseball, which is usually not a problem unless you're Miguel Rojas for the Dodgers against the Toronto Blue Jays in Game seven of the World Series. But I digress. So the Packer nation? Is that a thing? Still?

Packer Nation? They're waving their pitchforks like it's some kind of medieval cheese riot. You think they ever had a cheese riot in medieval times? The great thing about medieval times is the people that were living in medieval times did not realize they were in medieval times. They were just living their lives. So anyway, yeah, this isn't Jerry Jones with the flamethrower. This is sleepy Green Bay, a commune in the NFL a co op, so it's always

more complicated. If this was another town, you'd say, Matt Lafleur is gone. His ass is grass in Green Bay, though, eh, I mean going into the playoffs, Lafleur was on my short list of coaches that were on the hot seat if they didn't win, and the Packers obviously didn't win and they blew a massive lead. The issue is always the over five hundred thousand shareholders that the Packers have.

There's no one billionaire sugar daddy. If there was one billionaire sugar daddy like Jerry Jones, say okay, that's easy, that's an easy move. Decisions move much more slowly. It's like it's like molasses. It's slower than molasses. In late January. You don't fire a coach there, you don't. You submit a request, It gets laminated, it gets passed around and voted on by a guy named Earl wearing cheese stained

overalls and a foam cheesehead. And LeFleur he's got some alibis, mainly the highest paid non quarterback in the NFL, Michael Parsons, did not walk through that locker room door as a player, and Tucker Kraft, who had been a breakout star at tight end, did not play all, both to them enjoying some rice Crispies Snap crackle pop. So it's like baking a cake and not having eggs and then being shocked when you're on the British baking show and the thing collapses. Regardless,

you have a twenty one to three lead. You gotta win that game. I mean, you don't need me to tell you that. And after warning everyone, here's the thing. At halftime, they did a little halftime walk and talk the walkie talkie at halftime and he said, it's a Bears are a comeback team. You warned everyone and then couldn't get your team to make enough plays to stop that from happening. That's coaching malpractice. And there's fingerprints everywhere.

That's not stepping on a rake, that's juggling chainsaws blindfolded. So yeah, plus four hundred feels about right. It feels about right, about twenty percent chance. Is it possible? Yeah? Would it be painful? Yeah? And that loss was a body blow, bodyblow, body blow. Yet Green Bay doesn't fire fast. They don't they stew And I never liked stew I don't. It's kind of like a brought worst left on the

grill too long. I like a well done food. But generally speaking, you don't want your brod cook too much because then it kind of pops open. It's it's not that great. It's not that great. All right, last word on the Packer Bears game. All right, So let's talk about the handshake heard round the NFC North in the NFL playoffs question coaches Ben Johnson and Matt LeFleur sharing a very tense handshake at the conclusion of the NFC Wildcard game. How did you see it? Well, how did

I see it? On the judge's scorecard. That wasn't a handshake. This was a drive by DAP is what that was. That was a hit and run greeting. Ben Johnson did

not shake Matt Leffleur's hand. He processed him. You don't reminder, it was like you see those videos every once in a while out on the interweb, and it's like the Amazon delivery driver gone rogue on a ring doorbell where they toss the package, they throw it, they're throwing a fastball, they snap the photo, they peel out of the driveway, they burn rubber, the whole thing for the Packers, blowing

an eighteen point lead. The season goes poof abra cadabra, gonzo, and there's Matt Lafleur standing there waiting for some football decorum, and instead Ben Johnson's like, screw this guy. He gives in the old nice knowing you pal. I got to it. I loved every second of it I did. Does that make me a bad person? Know it does not. It was good TV, great theater. And this league needs more pettiness, not less. It needs more everyone. Everyone is treated like

a king. They're spoiled, rotten. They're spoiled, rotten, rich, every one of the Ben Johnson doing this drive by like an Amazon drivers pulling in what thirteen million a year from Chicago, thirteen millionaire. Matt Lafleur is making five million, which makes him the poor coach in these two for Green Bay. So these guys are not starving artists. They're not. This is ego. Sumo wrestling is what this is. So give me the tension, give me the side eye. I

need more side eye I do. It's a breath of fresh air, and sports are better when the smiles are fake and the handshakes are a little icy, And that wasn't disrespect, that was punctuation. I thought it was great. And then Ben Johnson got knocked over by one of his own players moments after that. It was quite the scene. Quite the scene. So the Chicago Bear fans, you talk about the spectrum of emotion at halftime, they were ready to run out Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams and Kavi

Williams didn't play all that great. It's really bizarre. The fourth quarter was wild and crazy. But for most of that game, Caaleb Williams was not a very good quarterback. But you're not supposed to talk about that because the only thing people remember is the final score. And you win the game and everything's great, everything smells like wonderful cologne, and you lose the game and you're rotting shrimp is what you are out in the sun, all right. Now,

Onto the early game. Onto the early game. The LMS had to come back not once but twice against lowly Carolina. Are you kidding me? It was fingerbiting hair falling out that all that. It was a win. It was a win. So let us discuss the question. So what did the Rams beating Carolina actually say about Sean mcvay's team as

they advanced to the divisional round. So we have overdosed and Neon Eraser on this mini Malar monologue as the Rams take down the Panthers in wild Card Saturday, now number one, number one, I'll tell you what it said to me. The Rams are who we thought they were. They play with their peas and carrots. They do. They don't just eat the meal. They're not workmenlike. They're not methodical. They don't go out and just take care of bins. They rearrange it on their plate. They do, they do,

they do. Now, we covered this on Benny Versus the Penny, and you listening to this, your fem I'm happy for my guys in Chicago. We talked already about the Bears game. But you're Femi eug and all those guys who are are loyal to the show tree in Chicago. I'm happy for you guys because the Bears have sucked for a while. But in terms of Benny Versus the Penny, we talked about the Ram game. We said, hey, I took Carolina and some of you guys were trying to bust my balls.

On social media and you're oh Man Meller, you're Rams. Oh Carolina, they covered the spread. I mean, okay, I took Carolina on Benny versus Benny. The Rams have been doing this all year. This is not new. They blew a nineteen point lead, I believe to Philadelphia. They blew a sixteen point lead in another game. And it's like they're running a community theater production of how to keep the underdog engaged? What are you doing? Like, just go for the juggular, go for the kill shot. They don't

do it now. Matthew Stafford first quarter, he was cooking with gas. He was Gordon Ramsey out there. There were flames in the air everywhere, him and Puka Nakua unstoppable. This looked like it was gonna be a forty to ten win, and then they had to play the rest of the game. The middle of the game, he goes from Matthew Stafford goes from Gordon Ramsey cooking with gas, and then he's rubbing rocks together like he's auditioning for Survivor.

He overdosed on stupid bills. It looked like he had gastronidis whatever it is, you know, the food poisoning, pale, shaky, miserable, all of that, and yet the end of the game, he pulls the rabbit out of the hat. The Rams matriculate the ball down the field and they get the touchdown to go ahead. They have it. They were down by four, they had to have a touchdown. So the ras Mataz was there at the end the game winning drive.

And you exhale, unless, of course, you're a gambler and you bet on the Rams, and that's not the case for most people. Unfortunately, most people aren't gambled. I love gambling, but most people don't gamble. And all that matters is wins and losses. Wins and losses. Now in my world of benny versus the penny. In my world, good teams win, great teams cover. The Rams are not a great team. And that's the thing. The Rams are good, they're not great.

And Sean McVay absolutely brilliant chef. The Rams thought outside the box. They took somebody who wasn't quite ready to be a head coach and made him a head coach. And unless McVeigh decides to quit and go do bad television, he'll be the Rams coach for another ten years. At least it's insane. And he's good. The guy's good. And so McVeigh just a masterpiece as a coach. And yet he's like a brilliant chef but keeps leaving the oven door open. So he's wonderful and has this terrible habit.

It's just knock it off all right now, Page two. So the Carolina Panthers believe that they are not these same old Panthers after this close playoff loss to the LA RAM So I want to address that the question there's a quote actually will wrap the question around. The quote from Carolina defensive back Mike Jackson. What a tough name to have if you're a star football player. A lot of people have the name Mike Jackson. But anyway, he said, quote, we just showed people that we aren't

the old Panthers. Mike Jackson said, close quote question, how do you feel about that commentary that we are not the same old Panthers? So I have two words I wrote down on my board, my chalkboard. Stop it are my two words. That is a participation trophy parade is what that is? What do you do if I was coaching the Carolina Panthers. So I'm Dave Canallis. I would be like, dude, you're out of here. Get out of here. You don't get a victory lap for losing capital l losing.

This isn't Little League with the orange slices. We're not doing that here. Hello, Like, what do you want? We will give you. I'll go into the prize chest and I'm gonna give you a neon blue eraser, that bright neon. I'll give you a teal how about the teal neon teal eraser? Good? All right, so Carolina, unless I miss something, still walked off the field with a giant l, big fat giant el. And now this and some other quotes

I saw coming out of the Panthers' locker room. They're doing this verbal gymnastics routine, grabbing for anything that feels like a win. And is it true that Vegas had them at two hundred to one to win the Super Bowl? To win the Super Bowl? That is not disrespect. That is a that is a bright billboard, times square billboard that reads, you don't belong here, You don't belong here. They were the biggest home underdog in NFL playoff history

of the Carolina Panthers. That wasn't shade. That was sunlight, exposing a team that was unqualified to be in the playoffs and the fat that they covered the spread. This wasn't the Panthers rising. It was a whoopedie damn dow situation. It was the Rams who were guilty of Malfeasan's in sleepwalking. After they built up a double digit lead early in the game, Sean mcvay's crew played down to their opponents, called sandbagging like a shark nibbling instead of biting. The

shark could always bite, but instead nibbles. It was a classic playoff trap game. And even then Carolina could not actually close the deal because Bryce Young isn't that guy. You're not that guy, Pal, You're not that guy. And saying that we're not the old Panthers, the same old Panthers after a loss is like bragging you did not drown, even though you just swallowed half of the chlorine water in the pool. Like what are we doing here in

the NFL? You've got it's amazing. This isn't called the scoreboard, and you have you've never heard this bore. You've got winners and you've got losers. No motivational posters survivors. The Panthers lost, they lost. End of story. That's it all right, Now onto the mail bag. It's all about the mail bag in Ohio. Al, can you get me in the mood? Ohio, Al. It's the mail bag, all right, very good, So let's get to it. These are actual letters by actual listeners

of the show. You can send a message in care of Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com. That's Real fifth Hour at gmail dot com. Name and city, name and city. Make sure to put that there if you want credit. Keep your questions short, and our answers will be long. If your questions are long, our answers will be short. First one up from snow Dog in Fullerton. It really is the Siberia of Southern California's Happy New Year,

he says, snow Dog. A little late, but I think I'm still in the window now the windows A couple of days after New Year's you're way past the window, way way, as you know, fer Dog. It's the eleventh of January. You have crossed over. We crossed the Rubicon long ago, anyway, snow Dog says, or ferg Dog says, you asked on the weekday show, who'd want to listen to your nine year old podcast. Well, I say everyone should. Skipping the old shows is like reading the Bible without

reading any of the Old Testament. There's many life lessons buried in those podcasts. Well, thank you, ferg Dog. I appreciate that. And of course it's a disposable form of entertainment sports talk radio where you do the show that day, you're talking about what's going on that day, and then the next day there's another show and you're talking about what's going on that day. It's not presented as an evergreen product. It's not a show designed to last the

test of time. You're talking about what's going on in that moment. Email continues. Last week, someone asked a question about Nostridamis. Well, I've got one regarding Nostradinis, the true profit of doom, says ferg Dog. He predicted Sam Donold will win eight straight Super Bowls with the Seahawks and go down as the greatest football player of all time. What do you think is more likely to come true that that or the Raiders winning more than five games

next season? All right, So a fer Dog or snow dog. If you gave me one thousand dollars of funny money and said, what's more like to happen? I would bet on the Raiders winning six games next year. We don't know who the Raiders is going to HIGs their coach. It'll be some DRABBRONI. We have no idea who they're gonna hire. So they'll hire somebody to come in and be the new village idiot, which is a great job. You can paid a lot of money, you don't have to win, and then you get fired. You still get

paid a lot of money. And Pete Carroll's gonna make fifteen million dollars a year for the next couple of years. Anyway, the point is that the Raiders play a bad schedule. They'll have the number one pick in the draft. They'll have the number one pick in the second round. They will not have the number one pick in the third round because they traded that to Seattle Forerchino Smith. Yeah,

but I'll tell I'll take the Raiders. I'll take the Raiders a Lucky Tony writes, and he says, hey, Ben, in the prison dream, I woke up mid swing, so nobody got shanked. But I love these dreams from Lucky Tony that's so good. I like them more than when he calls up and just drops a porn star's name and then hangs up. Anyway, Lucky Tony says in the Prison Dream, I woke up mid swing, so nobody got shanked. I did fun with the knife, but that's been a

reoccurrence in night dreams. Around the time I sent my song shout out, Mexican John Dutton, Terry and England also sent a song that never got played. Could one of you kind sers verify that they are in the system? Bears, I'm happy for Lucky Tony. Lucky Tony, I'm sure he got a little chubby when the Bears won that game last night. He had to be very concerned at halftime. I think we did play Terry in England's song. I believe we did end up playing it on the air.

We did not play it when it needed to be played, but we did eventually play it, and it is I believe in the system. So I can go back and check. But right not right now, I'm in the remote studio and everyone that works on the show is nowhere to

be seen. So anyway, big next one from kwang in Ho Chi minh Vietnam, he writes in he says Big Ben and Daddy G. He says, please let weed man Hippie know that Google has begun gradual role out of a feature that allows users to change their existing Google account email addresses to a new one while retaining all their data purchases in history. Users whose email address end in at gmail dot com can now replace them with

a completely new at gmail dot com address. This is a major departure from previous functionality, where changes a changing a username required creating a new account, manually migrating data blah blah blah. Crucially, this process does not delete old email addresses. Instead, the previous address is automatically converted into an alias. From Quang very technical Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. Guaranteed human but QWAG isn't that what a guaranteed human

would say or a robot? Rather that they're a guaranteed human? You feel me on that alf from Shady Pines Rights and he says, First off, I'd like to give a tip to the listeners if you send in a question to the mail bag that may or may not have been deleted and replaced by a best of that Danny G. Is still pissed at me for do not forward said email three weeks in a row. That question will not

be answered. That being said, are you guys at the age that whenever you see a bathroom in the wild, you say to yourself, I could probably go, or I should probably try before I get in the car to alf in Shady Pines. Yes, yes, alf guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. In fact, I now am at the point of my life where I have if I'm going on a long road trip, even going I'll tell you just going from

work too. I live very far away from the Fox Sports Radio studios, and driving from the north Woods into the Fox Sports Radio studios, I have to stop drinking. I drink a lot of water. I have to stop drinking water an hour before I leave to go to work, Okay, an hour before I get in the malinmobile. I have to stop drinking water. And then I'm at the point now where I can't drink while drink the water while

I'm driving. I then have to wait until I'm about a mile and a half from from Sherman Oaks, and then I'll start drinking because if I drink any sooner. Then I got an emergency situation. That's a problem anyway, and uh what else? Email continues, First off, I'd like to give a tip. Blah blah blah blah. Oh, I think we I think we already covered that. I think we already covered that. I think that's a double that's a double ad there, bad job by me or bad

job by you. I don't know. Maybe that's it's probably my fault, not your fault. But yes, alf absolutely, I am very conscious of bathrooms. I know which locations have bathrooms. Now I have been burned, and well, you go to a bathroom and they you know, they got the code, and then that's a big problem. And all right, JT, the wingman from just outside Knoxville, Tennessee, rights and he says, hey, big Ben and Danny g So as we dive into the NFL playoffs, I pledge to keep my questions non sporty.

I didn't know who else to ask, so why not ask the podcast guys, when is the best time of the year to write poetry? I will trust your advice. That's from JT. So my recommendation, JT, is to write some poetry for the Malard Paloozer, which is the biggest event of the summer in sports talk great. It's right around the Major League Baseball All Star Break, which is in July. We normally coincide it with that. So I would advise you to work on your poetry in the

months of June and July. Get it ready by late July and you'll be good to go, and you could submit that into the show. We will have a poetry contest roses Vie the It's of blue and I can deep do poetry better than you, things like that. But JT, we love you, man. I'm sure I'll run into you JT. This year. One of the meet and greets, we plan on having several, at least we know we'll do Vegas. I'm getting I'm gonna get to Ohio one way or another.

That'll happen this year. Boston, it sounds like it's gonna happen. Mike the Leprechaun and Mike in New Hampshire are hell bent on having a Mallord meet and greet, a couple of them, one in Boston, and I think we'll have one in Worcester. So that'll be exciting looking forward to that. So we look forward to those events. We'll do one more here. I know we did a lot of ranting about the football playoffs, so some of you guys questions will not Some of your questions will not make it

out there. Scott from Florida the last one. He says, Ben, your tribute to Gene Deckerhoff was awesome. Growing up in Tampa, I used to listen to the Bucks games on radio because they stunk so bad. They were always blacked out on TV. Yeah, people forget there was an era where these games were on TV. If your team sucked, you

didn't get a lot of the games on TV. They didn't sell out at home, no TV, and Scott says, I would go into my room, fire up RC pro Am on the Nintendo and turn on Jesse Ventura doing the play by play. Before the team made a major upgrade to Gene Dekaroff. I will show my age with this, but I am not sure Degorov made a better call for the Bucks than the two NFC championship. The window was closing for this team. They couldn't win in cold weather, but they couldn't beat the Packers and now the Eagles

to get to the Super Bowl. On the opening kickoff in a cold, loud Philly stadium, Brian Mitchell returned at seventy yards to set the Eagles up for a quick touchdown. Every Bucks fan thought, here we go again, and late in the first quarter of the Bucks dril seven to three, Joe Jarvisius beat former Northwestern classmate Barry Gardner on a slant ran about fifty yards just inside the five yard line. It was a massive planet turned the whole game around.

That week, Jeravicius had lost his newborn son, and although I was only twenty three at the time, I would never I've never, rather never forgotten how sad and desponded Jerrevicious must have been. Same for Gene decker Off in that moment, in that play, he made one of the most emotional guttural calls of all time. Nothing fancy, but so genuine and unplanned. You go Joe, You go Joe.

And then Scott attached a YouTube video which I we're not going to play it, but I did watch it, and he says, as a former kid cheering for the backwards Bucks in the eighties and nineties, rest assured we all love and respect him as much as you. It's awesome that you know so much about him despite living on the West Coast. That's Scott from Florida. Well, thank you, Scott. And the reason I know Geen decker Off is because of my job and we I used to be an

update guy and we played. I remember more from his college football play by play calls than the Bucks. But because the Bucks were bad, as you said, but I do recall I always had a thing for the Bucks. The logo was so ugly, the old logo, the creamsicle logo with the pirate with the knife, the Robin Hood logo. I was, boy, that's such an ugly logo. It kind

of grew on me. And they were so bad, and I always liked the Losers when I was a kid, even I was like, these guys, these are so pathetic, these teams, and so have a chance to meet Jean decker Off and you know, get to know, not know him per se, but know his story, and through my relationship with TJ. Reeves, who's broadcaster for the Bucks, it was pretty pretty pretty cool, all right. That's it. So Reggie and Detroit, Steve, Mike and Wisconsin, Joe in New York,

all you guys. Brett in Boston. I'm a schmuck, I'm an a hole. I apologize. Send those questions in next week and hopefully they will make it. On the air. We have the live radio show Don't Forget About Benny Versus the Penny that's on YouTube. Check it out. Radio show returns tonight. We got three NFL playoff games to break down today around the NFL, so we'll get to that and have a wonderful rest of your Sunday. Got a murder, I gotta go.