Wall of Sound with Super Bowl takes

That was depressing news that we got, I believe it was Saturday night, passing of Jeff Charles, the voice of East Carolina. And for somebody like me, I didn't grow up here. I've spent almost half my life here by now. Pretty close.

In a few years, it'll be half my life. But Jeff Charles was, to me, East Carolina football. For a lot of people, their connection to North Carolina basketball was Woody Durr. Or to Duke basketball was Bob Harris. Because those are the sports that are most identifiable with those universities and their fans. For me, East Carolina, look, I created a baseball school.

I'm not arguing about disparaging anything else. To me, East Carolina is a football school. And the best and most consistent connection to fans from that football program was Jeff Charles. And it was just a sad passing that I know how many East Carolina fans felt it. So condolences to the family, condolences to fans who have lost, in their minds, in many cases, a friend because of the connection. So that was just a sad thing to learn about over the weekend. And I thought we should at least mention Jeff Charles, who, I mean, it's been a long, long time since I've spoken with Jeff.

I mean, I certainly have. But it was just a very sad thing that happened. And again, condolences to the entire East Carolina football and other community on the passing of Jeff Charles. All right, let's get to a wall of sound, try to pick the place up.

The wall of sound is a function of this studio. There's no doubt about it. All right, the Super Bowl was played yesterday. I am, I recall. Yeah, I remember it.

Oh, that thing? Yes, the Philadelphia Eagles had a 24 14 lead at the half. And then the script flipped.

How did it flip? Patrick Mahomes talked to the team at the half. I'm not sure they had to say a ton.

But here's what Patrick Mahomes had to say about it. I talked a little bit, it was everybody. It wasn't like I was the only person talking in that locker room. And we just challenged each other man to leave everything out there. And I don't want to say we played tight in the first half, but you didn't see that same joy that we play with.

And I wanted guys to just know that everything we worked for us for this moment, you have to enjoy this moment, you can't, you can't let the moment overtake you. And I thought the guys did that in the second half, and they fought to the very end. So it was interesting to me, because if you watch the game, and I assume that most people listening watched the game, yeah. In the first half, Philadelphia was kind of letting it rip a little bit more than in the second half. Yeah. And it almost looked like Kansas City was playing it a little bit more conservatively.

And we'll just use decisions that were made as a guide. Kansas City opted for a field goal on fourth and what lot like fourth and five from maybe even less than that, that it would have been a 42 yard field goal. It's very, very makeable field goal that Harrison Bunker did not make. But they Andy Reid opted for a field goal there.

Didn't work. Yeah. And so they missed the field goal. But knowing that it was probably going to be a game in which touchdowns were really important field goals as a last resort. It was a little bit conservative to see Andy Reid go for the field goal in that situation. Turns out they didn't they didn't get the three points.

So it became a minus seven as opposed to a minus four. In the first half, Nick Sirianni was all about it for fourth. We're going for that. We're going fourth and five. We're doing it.

Yep. They got them all. And the one opportunity in the second half where granted, it would have been a little bit risky because of the position on the field. They were roughly at the 33 yard line or something that a 32 yard line at fourth and two or three. He chose to punt, which I'm not saying is a bad play. But I wonder why the mindset changed in the second half. Obviously, field position mattered. But what you did by punting the ball was you gave the the the Chiefs, who already had a one point lead, you gave them the opportunity to now go a score up. And they took advantage of it. The truth is that was the punt returned by Kadarius Toney that got it inside. Oh, like the ten five.

Yes, something like that. But and I'm not blaming the because the punt was kind of low and it wasn't great. And Kadarius Toney made a great play.

So full marks for that. But the the worst that happens if you are unsuccessful is that you give the Chiefs a short field with which they could score a touchdown. But even then, everything we had seen from the game said Philly was probably the better team. Yeah, they would have answered. They probably would have answered. And actually, they did answer when they got the ball back. Yeah. And they got the two point conversion and they tied the game anyway. I thought that was where Nick Sirianni blinked.

That's where I think he that maybe the the moment got him. All right. Let's talk about the moment at the end of the game, towards the end of the game with the defensive pass interference or defensive holding call on James Bradbury. Here's the head coach, Sirianni, on the call. You know, I'm not I'm not it's not my job to you know, I mean, you'll see me on the sideline. I'm going to argue with different things of calls here and there.

But it's not my job to make the call. Those guys got to do that in split second, you know, scenarios. And so, you know, that's what he saw.

And he and he called it. And so that's never it. I know it always appears to be that, you know, it's one call that makes the it's not it's not what it is, right?

It's not what it is. There's there's so many plays that contribute to the end result of the game. And today they were better than we were. Yeah. Even he's saying that it's not down to that one. It's not down to that one call. All right. How about the guy who committed the call? James Bradbury? We know this.

Players never think they commit penalties or fouls or do anything wrong. Hey, James, what do you think? I mean, that's not up for my judgment. I was hoping he would let it go. But of course, he's a ref. It's a big game. It was it was a hold. So they called it. It was a hold. Look at that. So he called it end of discussion.

All right. But of course, it isn't the end of the discussion because we had morning talk shows on ESPN to deal with Ryan Clark from ESPN on. Was it the right call? The call is absolutely right by the letter of the law. You can hate it all you want.

You can think that it ruined a great game all you want to. But James Bradbury grabbed on to Juju Smith Schuster two times. And if this is the first quarter of this game, if this is the second quarter of this game, if this game is a blowout one way or another, then we're sitting here and we're saying, hell, nobody cares about the flag.

That was called with James Bradbury actually actually actually held Juju Smith Schuster. Yeah. I don't even know why we're having a debate about it. Yeah, but we are.

And this is why we're having the debate. This is from Pat McAfee, who actually went to Twitter last night. Did did you edit this to bleep out? Oh, did it need a bleep? Yeah, it might need might need a bleep. OK, it's not bleeped yet. Oh, so we shouldn't risk it anyway. McAfee wasn't that blue, but it was blue enough to to deal with it anyway.

McAfee said you can't make that call at that time. And Greg Olsen, who was otherwise spectacular last night for Fox. Look, I don't know what Tom Brady's future is in broadcasting.

I really don't. And look, if he ends up in the booth and Greg Olsen gets pushed out to a second, you know, the number two booth for Fox, that's what it is, because Tom Brady's going to make like 40 million dollars a year working for Fox. Yeah, but my gosh, Greg Olsen is awesome at that job, as is Kevin Burkhardt.

They're both excellent. The only mistake I would say for Olsen was you can't make that call at that time. No. And the answer is sure you can if you see it. And credit to Mike Pereira for saying right away, yeah, if you go back to the beginning of the play, he holds him right on the line of scrimmage.

And that to me is where they make the call. We did. You didn't re-edit McAfee yet. It's fine.

Don't worry about it. But McAfee spends a minute basically saying you can't make the call at that time. No, you can. And if you see it, you should. Time of the call doesn't matter. As long as it's within the game. I think that's what happened. It did. Ah, yes.