In this episode, Taylor Reacts to the AFC championship game where Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Cincinnati Bengals. He Talks about the reasons the Chiefs won, the performance of both quarterbacks and what’s gonna happen for both teams going forward. When he moves on from the game he talks about the Denver Broncos trading for and hiring Sean Payton and the Houston Texans signing DeMeco Ryans to a six year contract
In this episode, Taylor Reacts to the AFC championship game where Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Cincinnati Bengals. He Talks about the reasons the Chiefs won, the performance of both quarterbacks and what’s gonna happen for both teams going forward. When he moves on from the game he talks about the Denver Broncos trading for and hiring Sean Payton and the Houston Texans signing DeMeco Ryans to a six year contract
Taylor: What's up, everybody? It's the Roundtable sports podcast. My name is Taylor McLeann coming to you after an action packed conference championship weekend. Had little delay in in the timing. It's been snowing in Texas and it can even be just a little bit of ice on the ground to knock. Basically Texas all the way on its butt and nobody knows what to do, including driving, which is why, fortunately, I didn't have to drive today. Makes it a great day. So now that the power is back on and everything, I thought we'd talk about the games that happened as well as some of the news that's come out today, which I guess it's fortunate that we had some delays so we could talk about that news. Before we get to that, I wanted to give a shout out to the sponsor, Evergreen Power Solutions. They're a concierge power company. They're going to go in there, see what the lowest possible rate they can find you at this time, and try and save you money in the short term. And then when it comes to getting back in there, renegotiating the contract, they'll go in there, see what the lowest rate they can get you at that time is, and then if they can't get you a lower rate, they're not going to raise your rate at that time. So you're not having to participate in any rising energy costs. If that's what happens going forward, give them a call at 8886-6586, use prompt number two and let them know that Taylor McLean and the Roundtable Sports Podcast sent you. Now let's get on to the football. And I just rewatched the Kansas City Chiefs last second win over the Cincinnati Bingles. And watching it again, it was just as good the second time. Okay, not just as good because there's nothing like the feeling of a close game that you care about that has implications, that has incredible quarterback play. There's just something about that that's not recreatable in a rewatch. When you rewatch all the different games, you can just tell what is the higher level football and what should everybody what level of football should they be aspiring to play on a week to week basis? And watching what Patrick and Joe and their respective teams were able to pull off on this day was really impressive. And it's kind of one of the underlying things that you don't realize about the game of football is that the quality of the game that you're watching is so affected by the quality of the play of the quarterback and their ability to move the ball down field. One of the hardest things to do is to hit deep passes in the NFL. The margins are super thin, and the level of speed that is out there on the field is just crazy. It was good to hear Jason Kelsey talk about just how different the speed is and how you really have to practice against that speed, to get used to it, to be able to play against it. And that goes especially for the quarterbacks. And then you see, like when you watch the XFL or the USFL, part of the reason that those leagues aren't usually quite as successful is because they're playing with somewhere between the 60th best to the 90th best in a lot of cases, quarterback in the whole world. And you're playing with your Landry Joneses, and you saw Josh Johnson get out there and make that 49 ers game not very watchable, and he was one of the better quarterbacks in the XFL. So to see Joe Burrow and Patrick out there laying it all out on the line, even Patrick being a little bit under the weather, it was still pretty incredible to watch him go out there and make decisions and fire the ball down the field, even if he was I mean, what did it look like to you? It looked like to me it was about 75% to 80% of what he could do out there, if it was even that. It's probably a higher percentage because he is so good and he's able to paper over a lot of what he wasn't able to do out there with the running and the escapability, with everything else he can do. And just like with any great game, just like the way that the AFC has come down in the last couple of years, this game was super tight and there's a number of plays, as you could say, this game came down to or didn't come down to or whatever in this game. The Bingles definitely had their chances and had the ball twice with the chance to go down there and win the game and couldn't put the drives together. I thought it was super big originally in the first place, that they were able to hold the Chiefs down and keep the game close the way that they did. Getting the two field goals out of the first two drives and being able to hold Kansas City to those field goals at that time felt like a huge accomplishment and should definitely be a testament to the Bengals defense and to their overall game plan when it comes to playing the Chiefs. They did the bend and don't break on the first one, and then they got the very fortunate holding penalty and then covered well on the second one to keep themselves in the game. And I remember thinking at the time when I was watching that this could definitely cost the Chiefs, and Dang sure nearly did, because this game came down to the very last possession, as a lot of these do. And say what you will about the final call and that Bingles defender hitting Patrick out of bounds and should that have been called or whatever, I think they had a little bit more time that they would have probably gotten another playoff and probably would have had the same result. So I don't think that everybody should be piling on that guy who osai, who was all over the field and was covering his *** off out there up until that point. So put it all on him, and that play is pretty rough. And they kept showing him, and he did the thing where he put his helmet on and was trying not to be too upset that he felt like he cost his team the game. And I had to tell him that there was way more times that they could have jumped all over this game. Just like with anything. It's a multi variable problem on why the bingles lost that we'll obviously get into as we go through this. The bingles, of course, were held down in those first two possessions and allowed the Chiefs to get the win, partly because the line couldn't really hold off the Chiefs during this game. The Chiefs did a great job of getting after Joe Burrow, getting 29 pressures on him and being able to sack him five different times. And I don't mean to pile this all on the bingles line or give all the credit to the Chief defensive line either. They had a great deal to do with it, and certainly between Chris Jones, Frank Clark, Curl office, carlos Dunlap Don's got in there, donna excuse me, had a couple of hurries, so they were getting after him, no doubt. But it was also because there was a lot of good coverage by the Kansas City Chiefs out there, and they did a good job of making Joe Burrow hold the ball for a good amount of that time in an effort to make bigger plays. And a lot of the time he was able to get away from those and get out of it and make plays either short or down the field. And they did a decent job of getting the ball out of his hand so that he didn't have to just take on all the pressure and not get anything out of that. It's unfortunate for the Bingles that they had this issue. They had definitely tried to address it with their pre agent and draft and summertime moves and had just been a victim of the injury bug. And also not to gloss over this part as well, but the line also played a role in them not being able to run the ball very well either. So this really did fall right in Joe Burrow's lap. They were able to get the touchdown, and there were a couple of rushes where they were able to get some open field, but for the most part, Joe Burrow anchored them for 30 of their 71 yards on four rushes. So when you're getting 13 for 41 out of mix in and P. Ryan, that's not good. And that just puts more pressure on the offensive line to be able to protect longer for Joe, and that allows the Kansas city Chiefs to tee up. So they tried to address this. They picked up the two interior linemen, they picked up Collins, and they just weren't able to last. And that was the biggest problem of all. The missing linemen was the right tackle. He got beat on a couple of those plays with spin moves, but it wasn't just him or anything. The right guard also had a tough time, but overall got to give the Chiefs credit, especially when they lost Legarius Snead, who was their best corner. And then everybody had to kind of step up a role. And you had Trent McDuffie playing in the slot, and he actually didn't play that bad, and he had been playing in the slot more, for sure. But just like when Tyler Boyd went down, having everybody in their appropriate role really makes a difference for your team. Having a cornerback having to play too much or to guard someone that's a little bit beyond his means is one thing. Also, having to have Irwin out there playing the third role kind of allowed to double team T. Higgins and Jamar Chasemore and make the rest of the peripheral weapons beat them. And when Tyler Boyd went down after only playing 15 snaps, that was a big deal. So while I like Trenton Irwin just fine, he's overstretched as the third guy. He's a good fourth guy. And then that also puts more of the onus on Hayden Hurts as well. And when a Denigi isn't really holding up on the right side and Sharpening is also giving up the different plays and isn't really holding his own, that just kind of really puts a hole in your boat that is really hard to stop sinking from. Carmen actually was better than I would have thought. And I don't know, maybe they found something with him. Maybe he's a better left tackle than he is guard, as it turns out. But I think that's more of me just not liking Jonah Williams all that much. And I think that'll be a mistake if they pay him a whole ton of money at some point to be their big time left tackle, because I don't think he's been that to this point. My point being with all of that is that it's super unfortunate that the Bingles didn't get a chance to play with their full line, because we saw just how close this game was when they didn't have it with Joe playing the type of quarterback that he was playing out there. And of course, if you're going to give Joe Burrow credit, you have to give Patrick Mahomes credit as well. The dude was playing on a *** wheel. You could see it from step one. You could see it from the way that they were calling plays that Patrick was not all way 100%, and that they were going to need to kind of manage the way that they called the game versus the way that they would when he was out there full strength. I thought they did a great job of mixing things up, making sure that they handed the ball off. And I liked the way that they attempted to run, but even when they couldn't, they spread the ball out and used the short passing game as their de facto running game so that they didn't have to have Patrick create everything. In the end, though, it did come down to Patrick creating, and not just with his arm, although he was doing a lot more stationary things. But that's even more impressive that he didn't have his full bag of tricks and was still able to go out there and still hit guys deep down the field and still throw the ball with his laser rocket arm, but not always have to have it on platform either. That would throw a lot of quarterbacks off, not having their center of balance and making those type of on point pinpoint throws, like especially the one where he hits Marquez Valdez Scandaling in the end zone. That one was especially impressive and kind of had me mouth the gate. I immediately went to text my friends that I text with, typically during games, the other members of the round table, and they beat me to it. He said that was the throw right there, and he was absolutely right. But it wasn't just that one. There was plenty of other ones that I felt Patrick went in there and created more time, avoided the rush in a situation where he just didn't have his full mobility, and you could tell that he was playing through a decent amount of pain while running around there. But even with that, he laid it all out on the line, got himself out of bounds, and then happened to pick up the additional roughing penalty to get the Chiefs into position. And then they executed. And honestly, these games, the Bills games, the Bingles versus Bills, all these different things have come down. Not this season, but these different AFC Championship games and these different games between these great quarterbacks have come down to some pretty tight moments, and they've been a hell of a game to watch. And although it took me a minute to get to it just because of other things, this was one that I couldn't wait to watch. And this is going to be I mean, it's a classic. It's a classic game. It's one of the tightest games of the year, and it really meant something for these teams and for their legacies. Patrick, they kind of owned the Bingles and made some big talk about the Chiefs and their home stadium and the mayor this and Borough had that, it would have all been true had they been able to win this game. And like I said, they had two drives at the very end that if they could have executed on that drive, maybe they win this game. But instead, they gave Patrick only double digit time left and he's able to execute and do his thing. I think the game was even made greater by the fact that the game before it was kind of a letdown when Brock Purdy, as it turned out, tore his entire UCL, which makes a hell of a lot of sense why he had to be the emergency quarterback to come back into that game. And then we saw Josh Johnson, like I talked about, you're playing that level quarterback really makes the game a lot less fun. So after that game, as a pallet setter, to have this great game on the other side of it really meant something. And now they're going to play the Eagles, who have had one of the easiest pathways to the Super Bowl that I remember in some time. And to be quite frank with you, I'm jealous. And now we'll see if this game it was for the Super Bowl, as it felt like to me when I was watching it, there was one other takeaway that I had in this run. I still do think that Patrick is the best quarterback, the decisions, the talent, the arm, the everything. But I think Joe Burrow has moved beyond Josh Allen as my number two quarterback. I think that Josh Allen is physically more talented, but the way that Joe Burrow lays out the ball with his accuracy, he has plenty of arm strength. So while Josh has a bigger arm and while Patrick has a bigger arm, joe is just a superior decision maker and has superior accuracy when it comes to where he puts the ball. And the way that he was manipulating this pocket, getting around guys and getting away from guys on top of making these throws, not just in this game, but throughout the season and throughout his playoff run, it was only second to one. And those guys are going to play each other. We've got Josh Allen. We've got Trevor Lawrence. We've got Justin Herbert. Those are my five guys that I wouldn't trade anybody but somebody in that group for, and they're all in the same division. And we're going to get to watch them for years, butt heads. And it's going to be great because we're going to see high level games like this where it comes down to the last possession. You don't know who's going to win in a given day. There's that kind of parity. And when you get to watch quarterbacks of this ilk play, it's the most pleasurable experience when it comes to being a football fan, because Joe and Patrick, they're the best. And Patrick may have a little bit more in the arm and in the legs, but Joe has enough in both departments and then is so cool, calm and collected and just knows what to do while he's out there. And I know they didn't get the win today, and I know they had their chances, but joe's my number two. And it's not just because he has T Higgins and Jamar Chase. He has good weapons, for sure, but it's the way that he's navigating these insanely muddy pockets on top of making those throws and taking the hits and everything, that makes me feel that he is one of those guys that we're going to watch for the next ten years and just wonder how he does it so well. So exciting stuff with the football. We also had some football news come down today that I thought we should address. Now, of course, there's all kinds of could this guy be a cap casualty? Who's this free agent going to go for? Who's interviewing with who? Now Lou, Ana Romo can interview with this team, et cetera. Is Ledarius knee going to play? All that kind of news going around, all kinds of speculation. Is Jesse Bates going to return for the bingles? That was another one that's big for them. Really, the things that I'm interested in are actual coaching changes that have happened because it's just all speculation. I don't like to do the whole, like I said, Lou and Arumu interviewing with the Cardinals. I think that would be a great signing for them. He's been really good. He changes up the game plan and does a lot of things for them. But an interview is one thing. They can interview as many people as they want and they're required to interview some and it's a whole thing. But there's actually been some of the log jams of the coaching thing kind of break up, which is usually the first thing that kind of settles itself in this NFL cycle. So the fact that a couple of the first dominoes have dropped, I think is important. One of the ones that was right in my face being from Dallas was the Kelly Moore to the Los Angeles Chargers, which kind of put me in a weird space because I was kind of glad that the Cowboys let him go. I felt like things had gotten stagnant. I think it's going to take a more experienced, different situation to get Dack to where the Cowboys need him to be. And I think that Kelly Moore at times just wasn't sure exactly what he was doing and just didn't have the right frame of reference at times or just game plan at times as far as what they should be doing in certain moments. Now, whether that's Mike McCarthy, whether that's him, I guess we'll see. And it wouldn't matter to me if he was going to a team that didn't have one of my top five guys that I love as a quarterback with Justin Herbert because he's going to the Chargers, like, immediately one day after. I don't know if that's great on either part. Like snatching you up a day after. Is that good for the Chargers? Is that bad for the Cowboys? I don't know. I don't know if that speaks well for anybody involved. I still got to think, though, that Kelly Moore is ten times better and ten times more like with it for what's going on right now than what Joe Lombardi was bringing to the Chargers. He just really had a poor feel for the way things should be going and what was making his team successful when he ran it. And he just put a cap on my boy Justin Herbert and his throwing deep and the whole thing just didn't sit right with me at all. And I just find myself not exactly sure how to feel with Kelly Moore in there now, because I'm like, I want him to not be that great because the cowboys let him go, but I also need him to be good because I find myself having to defend Justin Herbert for some reason, which is, like, the last thing I ever expected. I never expected to have to defend Herbert or one of the top five guys. But people have pushed back on Trevor after that rookie season. There was a lot of pushback on Trevor, which I'm super glad that I put out the video that I think Trevor is a franchise guy before all that. So I can claim that everybody is getting on my bandwagon when I guess he's the number one pick and there was probably plenty of people still on the bandwagon, but still it was harder to see it after that Urban Meyer season, right. So I expected that with Trevor a little bit, but I never expected it with Justin to have the Herbert haters come after me a little bit for defending him. And now I have all this stuff. I've had to buy up all their stock to make sure that his numbers don't crash here. So I need Kelly Moore to be good for Justin and good for that offense to make them look better and maybe having their offensive line stay healthy. They had a ton of issues this year, especially with their top end guys, with Slater, with Lindsley, and even Pippins was out for times. It was tough. I don't know if Filer will be back at his number. He wasn't all that great, but we'll see. And then, of course, maybe having Keenan Allen and Mike Williams in there, maybe not getting Mike Williams hurt in the last game of the year for no reason whatsoever, maybe that's not something you do. I don't know. It's kind of troubling the whole situation, as a matter of fact, with Staley coming back. Were the Chargers too cheap to fire him and get someone else? I don't know. God, I imagine Sean Payton would have been willing to go there. It's his wagon. To Justin. Herbert, too. So I don't know. Just a lot riding on that situation and I don't want the Chargers to screw up what should be a hall of fame level career if he can just continue to grow and continue to work on his reads. So one of the reasons I like Joe Burrows so well is because he's already there from mentality and a mental standpoint, both that his mentality is incredible and that mentally he's just so far beyond some of his contemporaries and really beyond most of them in that range. And if he had some of the physical talents that Herbert, Josh, Allen and Patrick had, then look out. The other big coaching thing that broke down today was actually a way bigger deal than Kelly Moore coming in. The Broncos finally have settled with Sean Payton. Now, they haven't come out with the contract number yet, but they have settled on the picks that they're going to receive. They're going to get the 49 ers pick that they received from the Dolphins in the Bradley Chubb trade, which to follow that little line of reasoning back, the 49 ers traded that pick to move up for Trey Lance. So that's how Miami got it, because Miami had forfeited their pick because of tampering with Tom Brady. So that's how that first pick round pick came about. And then it'll be the second rounder in 2024, which they'll receive a third rounder from the Saints. So that is a pick swap. So a second for third pick swap and the number 30 overall pick because it's the San Francisco's pick, which is a little bit less than what they had said they were going to get. And on the numbers, I think that Sean Payton had been pitching 20 to 25 million. I know there's a lot of people, including my dad, that thought that Sean Payton would maybe not even take a job and wait around for a Herbert or wait around for the Cowboys job, but clearly not the case. Seems like the Broncos were willing to do anything to reverse course on what they had had going on this season after, of course, the disaster with Nathaniel Hackett. Side note, I thought it was insane that all of a sudden Nathaniel Hackett was an offensive coordinator. After how bad the Broncos had looked in this season. I got to imagine he's a way better just offensive coordinator. But I thought it was really weird in a Jason Garrett type way that he got snapped up so quickly after how bad that offense truly looked. I know Russell wasn't at his best and that'll be a big thing for Sean Payton to deal with, but I find it curious that he's going to turn around things for the jets must be a thing where they must be pretty confident that they're getting Aaron Rogers, which is something that's been speculated. We'll see if that comes around. But I just had to have a quick side note there since it's Broncos related and that's what we're talking about here, that I thought that was insanely curious. As bad as things looked at the Broncos games and of course, the Sean Payton thing is after flirting with Jim Harball, interviewing Demiko Ryan's and going after him. I guess this may have been a better situation overall or maybe a better win now situation overall for Dmiko Ryan's versus the Texans, who he actually ended up signing with, which we'll talk about in one moment, and it wouldn't have cost you any pick compensation to get that done. But I think that overall for the Broncos, this was something they had to do. By comparison, I think that the Broncos have defense, and that's something that Demiko could have sunk his teeth into and gotten a lot out of. I think that's definitely the case. But I think it's way more important for the Broncos to get this Russell Wilson situation up and running. And I have to admit, what I saw with Sean Payton and his use of Drew Brees, I always thought that was a good fit for Russell, too. Sean has the ability to scheme open rushing lanes and to get the rushing game going, which was something the Broncos needed to have in this season as well. But I didn't really like the way that it was schemed up. And their offensive line still has a lot of work that they need to get done. As far as getting better, I really only liked one of the linemen, and then he got hurt. And as I said, as I kind of gave the Broncos their last kiss at the end of the season, that I really only liked one of their linemen at a replacement level at that point. So that's something they're going to have to work on. Sean Payton is really good at scheming that stuff open and really just scheming up offense. He's one of the offensive guys that I really respect, and I thought that Russell would be someone that could work well within that system or I just felt like Sean was somebody that could work Russell into something that would be successful. When he was in Seattle and Sean was with the Saints, that was one thing that everybody had talked about at that time, was maybe that's a fit. And in the first gurglings of Russell leaving the Seattle, it took a whole year after that before we actually saw it, but Russell made that list and the Saints were on it. And I think that was because he knew that Sean Payton could get the most out of him and put him in a position to succeed because he'd done it with Drew Breeze, who they are quite similar. When Russell was being successful, he was a more athletic Drew Breeze. Not the same decision making level, but the accuracy level was there. He was very accurate. He was putting it on guys in a very Joe Burrow like way. Not the same way, mind you, but the accuracy was there. It was allowing guys to run with it. He also had really good deep accuracy. He was giving guys a chance to go. Up and get it with some success. And those were things that I thought could transfer over in the Buck season with the Broncos, with Cortland Sutton, with Jerry Judy, who I like a lot, oakaway Banana, Giovante Williams, who obviously we know why that part didn't work out. I thought all of those things could be something that could make the Broncos successful, but with all the pieces moving the way they did, it was a nightmare for that team and for that offense, especially because the defense brought it at given times. Sir Tan is really good and someone that you can nearly build a defense around with him being as good as he is as he is at corner. And they have other working pieces there as well. But hopefully Randy Gregory is going to come back. Cream Jackson is getting a little older, but he's still playable. Josie Jewel. I mean, there's some players here, they definitely need to get the pass rush together and the like. So there's work to do on both sides, for sure. But I think it's a workable situation, and I think it was first and second round pick important for them to work this out and to get things working with Russell and with Sean in there, because they've signed up for this for a long time and things could really go downhill. And with the way the salary caps worked, I mean, you couldn't field a team if you tried to move on for us for a really long time. So it was important for them to get this right. So to get their guy, to get the one guy that I felt like was out there on the offensive side that can guarantee you things going better, that's a big deal. And that makes me feel a lot better about having Russ in my salary cap. Dynasty League, he was just kind of someone we held onto because of his cap number. Next year is only 22. Unfortunately, it goes up into the 40s after that, although they'll probably manage that somehow. But still, there's a lot riding on this hire. So I'm happy for Broncos fans who have just wanted somebody to save them for so long and who are really one of the top fan bases, as it turns out, and don't get love for that, but mainly because their teams have been sporadically good. And it's been a long time since Peyton Manning was a quarterback and since they really had somebody stable at the quarterback position, and that's what they thought they were getting. But hopefully now Sean Payton quarterbacks and coaches are joined at the hip. So to have the joining of the hip between Hackett and Wilson goes so bad, you have to hope that this one goes a lot better and can turn your franchise around. And if any franchise kind of deserves it, it is kind of the Broncos, because it feels like they've been suffering. Not for a Cowboys long time, but for a long time, for sure. And things are kind of getting a little long here. But another hiring happened today. Damiko Ryan was hired to a six year contract, which is a little longer. I think the contracts are usually four or even five years, but a six year kind of takes it to that next level, which is fine. He was kind of the hot name out there beyond Sean Payton, and I think he really was a great hire for the Houston Texans. How it works out is anybody's guess, right? But I think this was a strong move by them, especially after the way things have gone with their last two coaches. They kind of scapegoed those coaches and then correctly Jack Easterby. Maybe this means they go for a defender and the six year contract and maybe they don't go with the quarterback, but I got to think they get a quarterback right here and now. You can move on with your franchise quarterback and your new franchise coach. He's a defensive guy, obviously, and he's one of the younger minds and it's a swing at one of the new hot things that I think the Texans can afford to take at this time. It's a big pivot point for them. What they do with the second pick, I said first, I think just a moment ago, but regardless, if it's Bryce Younger, CJ. Stroud, I think they have to take that hit. I just don't think that you can have too many turns at the one or two spot where you're going to get these franchise type guys. So I think you have to take your shot while you're there. What if Demiko Ryan's is successful and then you're drafting from like the 12th or 15th spot? That would be a successful jump for the Texans, right? So then you're having to draft a guy from there. That's not good. I think that the Texans have pieces on defense. Derek Stingley, he might not be Sauce Gardener, he didn't have the same season that Sauce had, but I think he is good and can be a guy that you center around. I think that you're still drafting out of a talent deficit as far as players on the offensive line. Your wide receiver is just everything, so you're still having to draft around that. But you've got extra picks to do. So you didn't have to give picks up to bring in Sean Payton to do so. You're going to have a quarterback if you just take that plunge. Or you could trade back a little bit, get more picks, I guess. I mean, there's a lot of things you could do there, but I think I would be taking Stroud if Bryce Young is in fact the number one pick. Like, things have kind of been trending so far, but who knows because we don't even know who's going to be in that spot. They may like CJ. Strauss better and then we've got Bryce Young for the Texans. Either way, I think you're taking like a 60 40 shot at having a franchise guy versus just having a replacement level guy. I think there's definitely a shot at both those things with these guys, but I like it better than what than the chances that Kenny Pickett had. And then Kenny Pickett kind of showed some flashes that he might actually be a guy, maybe not with the same type of upside that Bryce or CJ. Straud had, but he's definitely a guy. So you take shots and you hope that you find a guy, whether it's there or whether it's in the teens or the fourth round or it's Mr. Irrelevant. Brock purdy. And the same thing with coaches, despite this six year thing. I mean, you take shots and you try to find your guy that motivates his guys and has people fighting for him. I thought Lovie did a good job of game planning at times and everything, but I don't think that's who you are moving forward with. And maybe if you weren't going to take a quarterback, then you leave Lovely in there and let him beat a scapegoat for one more season. But the fact that you're going with Dmiko, you got what seems like the strongest hire on the board to come to your organization that's been a little crazy and out of sorts in the last couple of years especially, and you're in good shape. And we may be looking at this and this may end up being a Matt Patricia situation who just failed in his second consecutive coaching stint and hasn't been fired yet. But I got to think it's at least going to be moved out of the offensive coordinator situation for the Patriots. Maybe we're looking at that and we just haven't seen it play out yet. But I think that given the circumstances, this was definitely the best move for the Texans. I like it a lot for him and I like the way that Dmiko has deployed his guys on defense, too. It's kind of unique and he's got some unique guys on that defense too, but it has also been a schematic thing with them and I do feel like he's gotten a ton out of them for what he has. Like I said, a lot of talent there, right. But it is a good situation and I would put more odds on him being a good coach than on CJ. Stroud and Bryce Young being franchised guys. Like I said, I like their chances just fine, but there is some bus potential there with them as well. CJ is a little bit more robotic and didn't run enough for everybody's taste in his college time until like his last game where he got pressed into it and then, oh my gosh, he can run. It looks great. We need to see more of that. And then there's Bryce Young. His size is an issue. It's not the fact that he's short. The height is part of it, but it's just really more of his stature. Like, he's not a thick guy, and he's been playing in, like, the 180s. It feels like when he needs to be playing in, like, the low two hundreds, maybe he can do that. As I said earlier, as Jason Kelsey said in his podcast, there's a step up that you have to take from college to the NFL, and it's hard to tell who's going to be able to take those steps. That's why drafting in the NFL is so hard and the good teams are able to get in there and figure out who's going to work and who's going to put in that extra time. And even they make misses because it's really hard to judge human behavior and how things are going to translate from these two. Very similar, but also very different games. When you've got a bunch of guys who aren't going to play this for their eventual career in college and in high school versus all Americans all coming together to play against each other, it's a whole different thing. And we'll see which quarterback and we'll see which coach is able to take that next step. I don't think it's a given for any of these new guys that it all works out, but I like the hires, and I think that it's the strongest move these teams could have made, given them their circumstances. So good for them. Two really strong fan bases. The Texans don't have as wide an appeal to their area just because the Cowboys are there, but their fans are absolutely passionate and love football, and they just want to see a winner, just like all of us. And they've had some really tough times, so here's hoping they got their guy. Hope that Russell got his guy. I hope that you're having a great day, and I hope everybody here in Texas is staying warm finally. My power was off for a little bit, but I'm glad to have it back. And I'm sure I'll be saying the same thing about football once it's over. It's been a long season and I'm a little burnt out, but it'll be two weeks after the Super Bowl, and I'll be super bummed out because there won't be anything new coming in and I'll be waiting for the USFL. So, wow. Those are words that will haunt me, I'm sure, but it is what it is, and I appreciate your time today. If you've gotten to this point and haven't done so, download the podcast. Let me know that you're here and listening. Otherwise, look forward to some videos coming out this week. I've still got some in the pipeline here. As long as we've got new NFL coming out and have a great rest of your day.