After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 4

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. This is with you, young Skywalker. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Does Carlos know me or what? Oh my goodness, I just said to him, how many times do you think it's too many times watching the Star Wars movies? But I've seen them hundreds of times and I still love them every single time. And the music too is iconic. On my road trip to Portland last weekend, I was listening to the Star Wars soundtracks. I was not watching the movies while I was driving, I was just listening to the John Williams scores. He's my favorite composer and a friend of mine, actually you'll remember him, some of you, producer Tom.

My original producer Tom. One year for Christmas, he put all of the Star Wars soundtracks onto a flash drive and now I can play them in my car, play the music in my car. And sometimes that's just all I want to do is listen to Star Wars music. In fact, on the way up to Portland, I was so engrossed in my Star Wars soundtracks that I forgot the football game had started and was like, uh oh! And I had to tune into the Packers and Chiefs.

I can't remember now. Anyway, it was like, oh no, I have to listen to football. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

It's not really a Star Wars weekend, but Carlos just, he pulled the rug out from underneath me and so now I'm thinking about it. You can find us on Twitter, After Hours CBS, or you can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio. Thank you, thank you for all of your Thanksgiving messages. Lot of people weighing in from all over the country, north of the border, even outside of the continental United States.

And we've got Alaska as well as a couple of the Caribbean islands who are weighing in. We're just asking you, who's out there? Where are you and how are you listening? So I just retweeted here a ton of your responses on our show account. And so we'd love to hear from you in this final hour.

And then also on our Facebook page, you're bloated up there. You're hanging out with us even on Thanksgiving and so many of you sending kind words, which I really do appreciate. I hope that your Thanksgiving was full of whatever you needed. If what you needed was a nap and a day for yourself, then I hope you found some rest and some peace and quiet. The Thanksgiving holiday for me is about the F's.

I have to explain to people. Whatever combination of family, friends, faith, fellowship, food, fun, and football. Whatever combination floats your boat, awesome.

I hope that you enjoyed some or all of those elements. I didn't get to see my family, really missing Grammy Helen on this Thanksgiving. It's the first holiday without her.

So I was thinking about family a lot, but was with friends who treat me like I'm part of the family, which is sweet. Way too much football. Way too much. Actually, is there any such thing as way too much football? When did the NFL just kind of slide that third game into our DMs?

It's like sliding into someone's DMs. They just kind of covertly trained us that now it's a triple header and not a double header. I told you, the NFL is like urban sprawl.

Once they have spread out, they do not back up. That's why we're going to have Friday games this year. Because during the pandemic, they played every day of the week. In 2020, they moved games to every day of the week.

And I said then, watch, there will be Friday NFL games coming up. Now that they've got you on Fridays, they're not letting you go. This is what happens. They get you in their clutches.

They get us in their clutches and they just train us that this is how it's supposed to be. It used to be a double header. Now it's a triple header. When did that happen? It just kind of happened. And now we think that's how it's supposed to be. They're sly suckers, aren't they? We can't miss you if you never go away, NFL.

No, I'm kidding. I love football on Thanksgiving Day. It's a great part of the tradition. But yes, it is amazing how the NFL just continues to spread out, spread out, spread out. We're trained to just expect football year round. Well, it was a triple header.

It was dramatic. We had some fantastic fights across the board. Five of the six teams were teams with winning records.

And the Lions were the only team that did not have a winning record, but came in on a three-game win streak. So we're going to hit those games. We've got our phone calls as well.

855-212-4227. I just asked producer Carlos to see if he can find something, anything from Greg Berholdt or Christian Pulisic, because today is the biggest match for the U.S. men's national team in eight years. We have not had a World Cup game of this significance in eight years as the USA plays England. I've got to tell you, side note, I love Harry Kane.

I think he's a phenomenal player and I love to watch him. So this is going to be a tough test. U.S. should have had three points in their opening match against Wales, coughed it up late with the mistake and the penalty kick, and now that puts the onus even more on Team USA in what is a matchup against one of the best teams in the world in England. So I don't know if we'll have any preview audio, but just suffice it to say, 2 o'clock Eastern time, 11 a.m. Pacific, it's a monumental match for the men of the red, white, and blue.

We'll get to that on Friday when we get to it. For now, we are talking fireworks between the other red, white, and blue, the New England Patriots on the road at the Minnesota Vikings, seven scoring drives in the first half, and they picked up where they left off in the third quarter, four consecutive scoring drives to start the third quarter. So those of you who were worried about the Patriots' offense, yeah, I think they're all right. This was a game indoors without the blustery conditions in New England like they had last week against the Jets, but I would say that the Vikings' defense is pretty stout, and what we saw from Mac Jones moving the ball around, he's been really accurate the last couple of weeks. They didn't run the ball as much as they need to, so that's important, but Ramondre Stevenson was involved in the passing game as well. I know they lost one of their running backs for a time, and so this was a game that had a lot of pop.

It had a lot of back and forth. It was a real good fight and a real good test, and look, we got, you want to talk fireworks, we got one of those rare plays in the NFL in a second straight week. Folks kick, short, Wanwu from the four near side.

Angle to the right, to the five, to the left, to the 10, 15, 20, 25. Kene Wanwu, 30, 20, touchdown. That's Kene Wanwu's third kick return touchdown of his career.

That one went for 96, and it's 23-22, New England. It felt good just to be back there with my teammates around me, but during the play we had great blocks, saw the sideline, got to the sideline, saw the kicker was blocked. I was like, oh yeah, we're scoring. So yeah, it was a good play, great feeling just to be a momentum starter for our offense, and that's just the mindset on special teams. Would you believe that Bill Belichick actually called that the play that cost him the game?

I mean, this was a huge deal. It was 96 yards, and Kene Wanwu tells you, oh yeah, he could see it unfolding, they were scoring. But yeah, Bill Belichick asked after the game about that moment, and he said it was a game changer. It was momentum changing, even though it was still early in the third quarter. So you hear Paul Allen on Vikings radio, fantastic, just joined us going back 10 days ago here on the show.

Great to connect with him. So the moment that there are a couple of moments in this game that I hope Patriots fans will continue to think about and argue about, but one of them extremely significant because in the fourth quarter, the Vikings appear to be punting. They're punting. They're giving the ball back to the Patriots. Patriots are hoping that they can at this point try to snap a tie.

So it was 26-26 in the fourth quarter. Patriots are about to get the ball back, but they get a running into the kicker flag on the punt. Because of that, it's an automatic first down for the Vikings, and they're able to extend their drive.

Do you know what happened seconds later? Seconds after they give the Vikings that first down? Kirk, great drop. Looks to the end zone for Thielen.

Yes! Touchdown! A 15-yard touchdown bullet from Cousins to Thielen, and it's 32-26 Vikings.

The penalties don't come much more costlier than that one. Now, the Vikings still had to move the ball. The penalty actually happened deep in their own territory. They were on Minnesota 35-36, something like that.

So they still had to move into New England territory, and obviously they get credit. Justin Jefferson with a phenomenal catch, a really precision pass from Kirk Cousins. Couldn't have been anywhere else. And then Adam Thielen on third. It was a first down there, but Adam Thielen, their first in 10 at the 15, and he's able to catch that touchdown pass. And so Minnesota had to capitalize, but they did. The drive was over until that penalty.

So that's a huge one. Again, Paul Allen on Vikings radio. There were still more opportunities. So at this point, they're up by a single score. They're up by seven points. Patriots had three more chances with the ball. Blake locked down to three. Third and seven from the Vikings 30. Jones back to pass. He's sacked! Danneel Hunter went hunting, and Jones is rolling about on the turf. The Patriots have 89 yards to go. If Mac Jones goes 89 yards and 53 seconds to zero timeouts with zero timeouts, we deserve to choke on the gizzard. He's back to pass.

Yes! He's sacked! Down by the goal stripe. Three sacks for the Minnesota Vikings. Oh, my gosh. Sorry, Paul Allen cracks me up. He's really good.

He was great on the show, too. If Mac Jones goes this length of the field with a few seconds left, we deserve to choke on the gizzard. Mac had really good numbers. He was close to 400 yards passing, a couple of touchdowns, but not only will that one penalty haunt the Patriots, but how about the fact that they had three more possessions with the football, two legit, one kind of there in the final seconds, and they were not able to capitalize on them? Definitely a tough game for us. Never want to lose, especially on Thanksgiving, but we just got to kind of move on, flip the page, and get ready for the rest of the year here. We've got some good opponents coming up in our division, and just got to look at the film and try to get better. Definitely not the result we wanted, but there's no time to kind of drag and feel sorry for ourselves.

Definitely a lot of things we can do better, and we'll just watch the tape and learn from it. Meanwhile, think about where the Vikings were last week. This does end the Pats' three-game win streak, though they are still above.500. They're now at 6-5. In looking at the standings right now, still, every team in the AFC East is above.500.

Not quite as crunched, because the Bills won. We'll get to that game. But the Bills are now 8-3. The Dolphins, who've won four in a row but had their bye last week, we'll see what kind of momentum they bring out of the bye. They're at 7-3, so they could tie the Bills again with a win on Sunday. The Jets are 6-4. They're making a quarterback change.

We'll talk about that. And now the Patriots are 6-5. And so that's how things can change so rapidly when the teams are all bunched together. You can go from second to last in the division in the span of a week because it's so tight and the teams are so competitive. Same thing in the NFC East, which we will also talk about.

It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. Justin Jefferson is turning into must-see TV. Not only did he pass Randy Moss, former Viking and Patriot, but when he was with the Vikings, he set the NFL record for most receiving yards in his first three years in the league.

On Thursday night, Justin Jefferson passed him. Nine catches and another 139 yards, plus he had a TD on the opening drive. And to hear him talk about it, this is just the beginning of what he believes he has in store in his career. It means a lot. It means that my course of reaching to the Hall of Fame is near. But I'm just going to keep working, doing whatever it takes to make plays for this team. I love this team. I'll do anything for it. When that ball is in the air, it's mine. I love it. I mean, these are the type of games that I love the most. Thursday nights, you know, prime time.

The whole world is watching you. I mean, no better time to go off. He's one of absolutely the most special players I've ever been around as a player or coach. He tends to show up and be ready to go every time we put on the uniform and go out there. He was double-teamed a lot tonight, had some success against some of those double-team looks. When he got single coverage, Kirk found him a few times, got a great double move there to set up Adam's touchdown, go-ahead touchdown. He's a special player. He means a whole heck of a lot to our offense, to our team.

I'm just so proud of the way he battles and the grit and the determination and the preparation that he's put into this. And people forget sometimes it's still only year three, and he's learning so much each and every week, but the talent and the competitive drive that he has just makes him a very special player. Again, remember where the Vikings were this time last week. Well, not this time last week, but remember where they were in week 11. They were being demolished and embarrassed on their own field, same field as last night, by the Dallas Cowboys. They did not score a touchdown against the Dallas Cowboys. They were limited to three points, and they pulled their quarterback late. Kirk Cousins, the offense, they rebound nicely.

Now, he did have a pick, but he also had three touchdown passes, and Justin Jefferson is his cheat code. It's phenomenal to think about the wild swings and the emotions, too. So Justin Jefferson talking about how important it was that they got right back on the horse, essentially, and went right back to work. Coming off of last week, the blowout, we didn't like the way we played. We didn't like the way things went, you know, going into this game.

We just forced having more energy coming out and just doing what we're supposed to do. I love to watch him play. Stephon Diggs also put on a show. He and Josh Allen in their game against the actual Lions in Detroit, not just borrowing the stadium. So we'll get to that game, too, plus Giants and Cowboys.

It was, I don't want to say a tale of two halves, but when you watch the potential of the Cowboys in that second half against the Giants, you kind of see why I believe that this version of the Cowboys, the last couple weeks, is a team that can challenge for a Super Bowl ring. What did she just say? It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Happy Thanksgiving weekend. I hope you had a great Thursday. Thanks for hanging out with us here on CBS Sports Radio.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Shotgun snap to Prescott. Back to pass. Looking throws. Left corner of the end zone. That's caught for the touchdown.

Dalton Schultz. He beat Nick McCloud to the back left corner of the end zone, and Dak dropped a dime. 7.21 to go third quarter. We're tied at 13 with the extra point coming up. Cowboys going no huddle again.

Play fake. Prescott rolling right side of the throw. That's caught. Dalton Schultz diving to the end zone. Touchdown, Cowboys. Second touchdown catch of the game for Dalton Schultz. And the Dallas lead is seven with 2.02 to go in the third quarter.

Cowboys 20, Giants 13. Second down and goal from the two. That's a handoff sweeping left into the end zone for the touchdown.

They handed it off. The hinders shot the tight end. And he scampers in for six. Cowboys extend the lead. 8.53 to go. It's now 27-13 Dallas.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. 21 unanswered points. Three touchdowns on three drives in the second half. And man, these were extended drives for the Cowboys.

They wore out the Giants defense. And when New York would get the ball back, they didn't do anything with it. Really, the turning point in this game, Dallas comes out of the halftime locker room and holds the ball seven and a half minutes. Alright, so 14 plays, 75 yards.

It's dacked to Dalton Schultz. On third and 15, they grab the lead then. As soon as the Giants get the ball back, they have an opportunity on fourth and one, right? So they have the ball for very little time.

They have the opportunity on fourth and one. Daniel Jones throws behind Saquon Barkley. So Barkley is moving toward the right sideline. Daniel throws a ball that's behind him. Had he thrown the ball out in front and led Saquon, there was only one guy in between, I think it was Parsons. Wasn't it Micah Parsons who was between him and the end zone?

That was it. He was gone, except the ball was behind him. And it was a fourth and one with an incomplete pass. Cowboys get the ball back.

Alright, so that was the opportunity. It was a relatively short possession, and the Giants defense was already gassed. And so when the Giants D had to go back out there on the field, next possession, they're worn out, they've got hands on knees, and it snowballed from there. So right, the first possession that the Giants had in the second half, they held the ball for all of three minutes, and then gave it right back to the Cowboys, who scored another touchdown. And then it was, I think, another quick drive, two minutes, gave it back to the Cowboys. They hold it another five minutes with another touchdown. So Dallas dominated the second half.

It was really the ball control game, which was exactly what they wanted. 169 rushing yards as a team, and those 21 unanswered points. And as much as Dak Prescott keeps telling us they're recruiting Odell Beckham Jr., I mean, that offense is looking pretty slick right now. I'm as confident as I can be and have and always have been in this team.

As I told you all earlier in the week, that it doesn't matter who says anything about what they believe in. I know what this team is capable of, especially with this defense that we have. So we just got to continue to keep our heads down, take it one day at a time, one game at a time.

And as I said, we control everything that's in front of us. Proud of the team for getting it done today. Division game, a lot of back and forth.

And I know we're going to get into it. But to win a game when you have two to one penalties to your opponent, that's obviously not where you want to be. But I think it speaks to our ability, our capability as a team. Excellent division win game we had to have.

And I love the fight of the team and really tried to break their method. And one of the things I'm talking about is controlling the ball was a big focus for us today. I thought Kellen did a really good job staying patient. I thought Dan stayed aggressive.

So a lot of good things, but just the self-inflicted wounds, we got to improve and learn from today's mistakes. Mike McCarthy references 13 penalty flags for 86 yards. One of those actually negated an interception, so a takeaway off Daniel Jones. So the Giants were up in the first half. They were up at the break. It was 13-7. They were ahead at the break. And the Cowboys, they got stuffed on fourth and two. They had a pair of interceptions from Dak. And then they had a penalty that wiped out, well, a lot of stuff, but wiped out a takeaway. So they did not play great football in the first half, but were able to really exert their will in the second half. And that's what I mean about the Cowboys. They have such confidence in their defense, and they want to play that bowl control game.

And it really worked. They were four for four in the red zone. And they were also able to get to Daniel Jones three times for three sacks. But I think the stat that really jumped out at me, which kind of plays into the bowl control pattern for the Cowboys, is that they held the Giants to just three of 13 on third and fourth down.

So they were able to slam the door when it was required of them. That defense is so good. So, yes, Cowboys get this victory here, and they go back to back, right? They get the 40-3 win in Minnesota, then they're home, and they beat a division opponent. I'm not kidding.

I thought this was the game where Brian Deball might spontaneously combust on the sidelines. Every loss hurts. You seem a little more frustrated today, though, I think, too. No, I think we missed some opportunities. We've got to do a better job.

It starts with me. We've been missing some bigger plays that usually help in the run game, but we just haven't popped through there or the blocking, the running, the design. We've got to do a better job all the way around, I'd say, with the run game. Come back on Monday and get ready to play another division game.

They don't get any easier. Each week is tough, and we'll stick with our practice, our preparation, all the things that we need to do to try to go ahead and give us an opportunity to win a game. Back-to-back losses now for Brian Deball and the New York Giants, and he has certainly engineered a total turnaround for this franchise.

The expectations are higher, the toughness, the discipline, all of that is better. Daniel Jones looks like a different quarterback, but the back-to-back losses hurt when you're in the NFC beast, which is what it is now, and you really can't afford to lose a step. Eagles play this weekend, obviously. They are still the best record in the NFL now at 9-1, though the Vikings have nine wins.

They're 9-2, second best record in the NFL. Eagles, they don't play until Sunday night. They host the Green Bay Packers, so that's your game on Sunday night.

I think when the schedule makers probably put the schedule together, they thought, ooh, this is going to be dynamic. I hope it's not lopsided. Let's see if the Packers rise to the occasion. But the Eagles are now at 9-1. Cowboys are at 8-3, hoping the Eagles take a step back. Giants have fallen to 7-4.

The commanders are 6-5. They want to put together another three-game win streak here and try to make this division even more complex and complicated than it is right now. So that's the NFC East. How about in the AFC East, where the Buffalo Bills had to travel to Detroit twice in a week? This was the game that set the tone for the day, and we just went over it last hour.

You can grab the podcast after hours, AmyLawrence.com. But it was high-octane. It was high-powered. There were a lot of points. We know that the Lions can score, and the Bills were up for the challenge. And even as they get into the late stages, they're still duking it out, going back and forth.

I mentioned this earlier. I actually stumbled upon a Friendsgiving that had a bunch of Lions fans in it. I had no idea. I've never watched a football game that featured Detroit with Lions fans before.

It was weird. Some of them expect to lose. They're looking for the other shoe to drop, which I think is funny, but I understand. So going into the final couple minutes, Detroit is able to take the lead.

I'm sorry. It's able to tie the game with a field goal. And you would think that by leaving only 23 seconds on the clock that there's no way except that it's Josh Allen and it's Stephon Diggs. And those two guys, they make a way.

They were playing a little two-man concept, and actually me and Doris kind of talked about that a few days ago. We saw the same look in a previous game and just said, hey, let's put this play in just in case we might need it. We called it, and Steph ran a heck of a route and just gave him a chance. He made a heck of a play. T. Bass being able to have a short memory after that PAT and take the game-winning field goal, that's tough as nails. That's tough to do for an NFL kicker. He just missed one. You're stepping up to the plate to win a game, and he delivered for us. On first down.

Steps away. Over the middle. Diggs with a catch at the 40.

Up Detroit and down. Timeout called. They'll spot him down near the 38-yard line. Kirby Joseph with the tackle. One play. Josh Allen, 37 yards, and the Bills on the doorstep again. From 45 yards.

Good snap. The hold is down. The kick is on the way, and it is good. Two seconds remain, and Buffalo takes the 28-25 lead.

Redemption Part 2. Tyler Bass. Kevin Kugler on Westwood won, and earlier Tyler Bass had missed a point-after attempt. First time in 104 tries that he had missed the PAT, so it was stunning to see that, but then he gets the opportunity to kick the game-winning field goal, but only after. Josh Allen throws a dart to Stevon Diggs, who had three-line defenders that were swarming him. It was perfect, and that's what the two of them are capable of. They're one of the most productive, deadliest combinations in the NFL, and I'm not sure if you all saw the end of this, so clearly the two seconds left on the clock was not enough time for the Lions to answer, so after they put together this quick drive, this quick strike, they get the Tyler Bass game-winning field goal, the time runs out, the game is over, and on the sidelines, an exhausted Josh Allen grabs Stevon Diggs, and they're in this extended embrace. It was like one of those where they're holding each other up, they're both so tired, but the only thing that comes out of Josh's mouth, they're just standing there, right? But the camera is on Josh's face.

The only thing that comes out of his mouth is, well, lip, I can lip read, the F-bomb. Just, gah, that's essentially what it was. It's like, wow, we just survived another one. So they get two wins in Detroit in the span of a week, and that game was fantastic. It was tough for Detroit, of course. It ends their three-game winning streak. I mean, I was doing so well. But what it did produce was another Jamal Williams touchdown, so he's now up to 13 rushing touchdowns on the season, which is tops in the NFL, and this is a word we heard a lot of.

See, now, I go with my Thanksgiving F's. Family, friends, faith, fellowship, food, food, food, food. That's just one. Fun and football.

But how many times do we hear the word fight on Thursday as it pertains to the NFL? I was proud of our guys. We fought, you know, took it all the way to the end, had an opportunity, and, you know, we fell short.

But I was proud of them the way we played. You know, we're getting better. We're still getting better.

So it still stings. It's got to sting when you see Josh Allen find Staphon Diggs for 37 yards when there's mere seconds left on the clock. There's things we would like to do a little better, but I would say, look, that's a hell of a quarterback making a hell of a throw in a critical time, and that's another player making a heck of a play at the end, you know, to get themselves in that position.

That quarterback's the real deal, you know, he's a warrior, and he's clutch, and he made a lot of significant plays, you know. We knew it would be hard to stop him, but we felt like we had to try to contain him, you know, and I felt like for the most part we were able to do that. We gave ourselves a chance at the end there.

You know, second half didn't play great football. I wouldn't say we played great football, but we found a way. Guys were resilient. The ups and downs of an NFL game, that's a good team playing very well and playing good football right now. They're coached extremely well. So credit to them for having such a good game plan.

Guys just continuing to grind, guys going down, stepping up, just finding a way. I'm proud of our guys for doing that. You know, we've got another short week next week playing on Thursday. Obviously we've got a week to prepare, but we've got to be ready for that one too. That's in division, and we know what that means, and we've got to be ready for it.

You may not know this about the Bills. They are 0-2 in the AFCE. So get this, what do you play, eight games?

No, six, let's see, one, yeah, okay. You play each team in your division twice. They're 0-2, which means the bulk of their division games are still to come. So they play obviously six games in division. They've only played two so far, but they've lost them both. And now they've got the Patriots coming up a week from Thanksgiving. So they go Thursday, Thursday, which is interesting.

So it's a regular work week, except it's not. But the Bills have now righted the ship. They've won two in a row. We'll see how the Dolphins answer, because if they pick up their victory on Sunday, well, they would be at eight and three as well, and having won five in a row since two returned. We're going to get you set for the rest of Week 12 in the NFL. We've got some quarterback news, some injuries, some updates, all of that jazz. By the way, as for the Bills, we're waiting on any update about Von Miller. Expected to have an MRI today. Suffered a knee injury, had to be carted off. It looked very painful when his knee was kind of buckled underneath him, and then there was a lineman rolling up on him. And so it was scary looking, though the initial report is that he avoided the worst. But he could still be out for a stretch.

So we'll see what the Bills say about Von on Friday. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Fields sends command in motion to the right, pair of receivers top of the field. Now he'll join them.

A single receiver on the numbers to the near side. Snap is back, looking to throw. Fields jumps up in the pocket.

Now he's going to have to keep it himself. He runs. He gets the first down to midfield. Away at the 40.

Fields to the 30, to the 20. Can he beat the angle? He does. He finishes.

And now he's going to have to keep it himself. He runs. He gets the first down to midfield. Away at the 40.

Fields to the 30, to the 20. Can he beat the angle? He does. He finishes. In the end zone. Touchdown. 61 yard. A Sunday stroll for Justin Fields.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Justin has been dynamo since the offense, the offensive coaches, since the Bears in general set him free. Free Justin. They've changed their offense to allow him design plays with his legs and to allow him to run and to use his athleticism and everybody agrees that the Bears are playing a lot better. The offensive numbers bear it out but also the fluidity of the offense and yet the wins have not been there yet. So is this the week? Week 12. Is this the week that the Bears finally get a victory on the road at the Jets?

But there are quarterback questions for both of these teams. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence all this Friday morning and happy Thanksgiving weekend to you. I am always excited to work on Thanksgiving night. People think it's weird but we have so many people that are tuning in that don't get to hear the show on a regular basis. They're out of their typical routines and also because of the football games and what's to come this weekend in both college and the NFL, there's a lot of excitement.

People are on the roads too. They're moving around so if you're just hearing the show for the first time or for the first time in a long time, you can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio. We're asking you who's out there? Where are you?

If you're listening. And then also on our Facebook page too. We've heard from so many of you already. We're live from the Rocket Mortgage Studios. Whether you're looking to purchase a new home or refinance yours, Rocket Mortgage can help you get there.

For home loan solutions that fit your life, Rocket can. Alright, so back to week 12 in the NFL. It has been revealed that Justin actually has a separated shoulder. So what about this weekend?

It's a separated shoulder with partially torn ligaments, basically like an AC joint. So yeah, that's my understanding of it. Coach Flus pretty much said it was up to me.

They want the best thing for me. So he said if I feel that I can play, if I feel that I can go out there and protect myself and stuff like that, then I'll be able to go. So I'm just going to see how it feels each and every day and just play by ear. Just some movements that I do with my arm, it hurts it a good bit. So like I said, just trying to work through those motions and kind of get my arm used to moving in those particular motions that hurt it.

So it's used to moving that way and it gets the muscles stronger. I do hope we get to hear Jeff Joniak on Bears Radio calling more of these dynamic Justin Fields plays. Again, on the road at MetLife Stadium against the Jets and here's what the Bears are staring at. A four game losing skid, Falcons, Lions, Dolphins, Cowboys, they did have a win against the Patriots in there, but they lost the three before that. So they've lost seven of their last eight and they're in the basement of the NFC North. Right now, it's just about stringing some wins together. Just getting one win, right? Getting one win would really be a huge step forward for them. Any team that's trying to rebuild is trying to reset. Just find a couple of wins here or there and it makes you feel like you're actually seeing tangible progress. It's palpable.

You can understand why the work is so important because you see the results. Faith is believing without seeing, but sometimes faith needs a little validation here and there so the Bears are desperate for a win. As for the Jets, they're desperate about their quarterback situation and they've actually decided to give Zach Wilson the weekend off. It's partly because the offense has been pretty rough the last couple of weeks, specifically against the Patriots.

What do they have? Ten punts last week against New England in losing that game, but it even goes back to three weeks before that, three weeks ago, and the first game against the Patriots. They've dropped two against New England in the last three weeks and Zach Wilson's looked abysmal, but he's also been a punk when the microphones are in front of his face. So instead of taking the blame, like Josh Allen has said the last month consistently, the quarterback is not playing well. He even said at one point, it's hard to win when your quarterback's playing like crap.

A lot of these guys take it on themselves. Zach Wilson referred to blustery conditions in New England and didn't take any accountability, at least not publicly. The comments didn't go over well. He has since apologized to the team. He's been contrite.

I don't know what happened first, chicken or the egg. Either he apologized and then got benched or he got benched and then apologized. Either way, he's not even active this weekend. He's not even active. He actually is, he's inactive and the starter will be Mike White with Joe Flacco as the backup. So that's where the Jets are right now.

If the Bears don't win against these Jets, well then something's horribly wrong. Alright, moving on to more of our quarterback news. We've been waiting for some kind of announcement, some kind of definitive response about Kyler Murray and whether or not he could play against the Chargers and here's his head coach, Cliff Kingsbury. He looked good today, so I'm feeling good about the chances. I think if we didn't let him, we may have a fist fight in my office at this point.

Oh dear. I feel like he's definitely training in the right direction. After one of your coaches gets fired in Mexico for groping a female the first night that you're there, reportedly, allegedly, you don't want to have a fist fight with your head coach and your quarterback. That's just not, that's not probably the best way to get some headlines in week number 12. So yes, it appears as though Kyler Murray will be starting. He's on track.

He's trending in the right direction. Arizona this weekend takes on the Chargers who have got a bunch of injuries themselves but are just so happy they're not playing the Chiefs again that they will take it. Give us Arizona any day as in week 12. As for Matthew Stafford, it's complicated and he will not play this weekend. So on Sunday's game, Matthew took a hit.

He felt some numbness in his legs, all right? And so we wanted to make sure that we were checking all those boxes, being smart and so then we ended up saying, all right, as a result of that, you know, you take him in the tent, you ask all those right questions and we wanted to take the conservative approach to take him out of the game as a result of some of those symptoms that he was having. We waited to be able to get some medical expert advice on Monday to find out, all right, does this mean he has a concussion, things of those nature and that's what we were waiting to see.

That's why I didn't have that clarity for you guys on Monday, okay? The biggest thing is, is as a result of some of those evaluations and because we pulled him out of the game, he is in the concussion protocol. That does not mean that he has a concussion because we pulled him out of that game for those reasons. He's got a neck issue right now and we're continuing to gather those evidence, but he will be out this week with that neck issue.

He is in that protocol because of the way that he exited the game and then he'll still need to be able to take those necessary steps to be able to potentially get clear, but that does not mean he has a concussion or has been diagnosed with one yet. So it's complicated, as I say, but there is no Matthew Stafford this weekend, which means against the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead, the Super Bowl champions who are going the wrong way, he is not going to be available and instead they're going to have John Walford who started week 10 when Stafford was in concussion protocol. Actually we think it's going to be Walford, I should clarify, Walford has also been limited because he's dealing with a neck injury. Bryce Perkins was the latest to spell Stafford, which is, yeah, anyway, going into Arrowhead like that is even more daunting than just the situation that they're in right now where they can't seemingly buy a win. So that's another quarterback change. When you think about the Houston Texans, they've been scuffling too. They are the worst record in the NFL. On the road at Miami this weekend, they're benching Davis Mills and going with Kyle Allen. So they're also making a quarterback change. Aaron Rodgers is playing with a broken thumb, though as long as he can manage the pain, oh the pain, the agony.

I'm sure the losing and the humiliation of that hurts far worse than the thumb. But if they can manage, or he can manage, then they will play, or he will play obviously. He better play. He's the starter on my fantasy team.

But actually I'm winning in spite of him, not because of him. So that's the last couple of weeks he's been pretty good to Christian Watson. That's been a game changer. We got a lot to talk about when I'm back on Sunday night, but between now and then, remember family, friends, food, fun, faith, fellowship, football, football, football. It's After Hours on CBS Sports Radio. Boom! Promo code, fall update.