NFL Conference Championship Playoff Results! SF vs KC

Say what you want, man.

The National Football League delivers. There was, those were two, I don't know if I would call them fantastic football games, I mean they were both very good. Yeah, they were really entertaining at least.

Yes, and if you are a second-guesser, if you are a what-if type of person, and I think deep down we all are. Yeah. Whether we're right or we're wrong, boy there was a lot to digest.

Yeah. It was a great weekend of stuff for us to talk about. Granted, for the most part, we will spend the majority of today talking about the two games that were played yesterday. We will take a small respite to talk about Carolina's win over Florida State and Duke's win over Clemson.

I know that has created a lot of conversation. State's loss to Syracuse could have said no show. Yeah, bad. Yeah, quite, quite bad. Remember how excited we all were after the Wake Forest win?

Oh yeah. That was three losses ago. All right, so and of course the Hurricanes had a, you know, all wins are big, they're all two points. Three-one probably flatters Arizona more than it flatters Carolina in terms of the score because the way that game was played, that game should have been seven to one. Still a win. Yeah, absolutely, still a win. And Dimitri Orloff waited till there was 36 seconds left in the game to make it two to one. Yep.

And all I could think of was, how in the world is this going overtime? And by the way, that's what Arizona wanted because Arizona is great after regulation. I mean, great. They're five and three after they were, well, yeah.

Yeah, but Kings aren't too bad either. We just don't want it to go there. No, it's just unnecessary. Give us all the points. Unnecessary.

You know, you're playing the other conference doesn't make a difference. If you give them a point on the way out, nice parting gift. Here's a point. Take it with you.

But you want to get two. Yeah. And honestly, the third period was as dominant a period as I've seen in a long time. Carolina outshot Arizona 18 to nothing. Zero. Wow. No.

It's hard to score, but you don't actually shoot the puck on the other net. Well, that's kind of important. Right.

I will say this, and I pointed this out in the Cades Quarter podcast. That Arizona is the only team in the NHL to score a goal without shooting the puck this year. Wow. That's skill. Against Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh put it in their own net on a delayed penalty call. Chris Letang passed it back to Yevgeny Malkin, who mishandled the puck into his own net. And a guy who hadn't been on the ice for more than 30 seconds, Logan Krause, got credited with the goal because he was the last Arizona coyote to touch it to touch it.

He wasn't even he wasn't on the ice anymore. So weird. But anyway, let's get to football, shall we? For the fourth time in five years, we'll have the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl.

Fourth time in five years. Taylor Swift's going to the Super Bowl. Taylor Swift's going to the Super Bowl.

That makes me very happy. Yeah. No, I really don't care one way or the other about Taylor Swift. She does have a concert in Tokyo. Yes, she does. The night before. So this will be a red-eye flight from Tokyo to Vegas.

Yeah. And she'll be there for the Super Bowl. She'll just be a tired Taylor.

I'm sure she'll look fine. But I am most, I'm going to most enjoy the bros and how they can't deal with Taylor Swift. It's a lot of them. This is hysterical to me. Absolutely hysterical to me how they can't, they can't deal.

They can't handle it at all. Here's something else I found out that, look, I don't live my life online. I think I'm pretty news aware. I did not realize that for some, this is a leftist political plot. What? You're making it political? Well, I mean, everything's political. But I felt the same way last night. I'm like, are you kidding me?

There are circles that this is a leftist political plot to get the current president reelected. And all I could think of was like, you think the National Football League isn't on this? Right. Wait a second.

The NFL, you think they're in on this? Okay. Wow. Good for you. We were talking about our handshake with Brittany Mahomes and now it's politics.

I'm completely, I'm totally blown away by this. People need, get a life, just get a life. All right. Back to, back to the actual game or the games. Again, fourth time in five years at Kansas City is in the Super Bowl. That has happened one other, actually, I guess two, two other times. There is one team that has been in the Super Bowl four years in a row. I'll leave it.

I won't tell you who these are because we'll, we'll play a little trivia later on with it. There is one other team that has been in Super Bowls four out of five years. And then we can actually extrapolate it out a little bit. Cause there are five different teams that have been in Super Bowls in three out of four seasons.

Okay. Five different teams have done that, but this is only the second time we've had four in five years. We have had a four in a row.

So three different franchises for that. Anyway, 49ers 34 Lions 31 is where we're going to start. And this is all about the decisions, right? This is what people are talking about today, because this will be the defining conversation of San Francisco's comeback win. There is a separate conversation about how the 49ers have been outplayed for five of the eight quarters in the playoffs and are still standing.

Somehow. They were second best to Green Bay until they were about 10 minutes to go in that game. And then, Oh, we woke up. And then yesterday they were dominated in the first half. Completely. I, it was stunning to see what Detroit was doing to Green Bay. All right.

Or rather to San Francisco. I put a poll up. I thought this is a good one. There were four questionable decisions by Dan Campbell. And I thought, let's see which one the masses, I put this up like 15 minutes before the show.

Let's see which one the masses feel like is the most egregious, which of Dan Campbell's decisions was the worst. You can find this at a gold fan on Twitter, the field goal before the end of the first half. I'm not going to give you my, well, we'll go through all these first field goal before the end of the first half, the fourth down try on the first drive of the second half San Francisco.

I just kicked a field goal to make it 24 to 10. Right. And you had an opportunity to extend back to a 17 point lead fourth down, try in down three in fourth quarter to tie the game at 27 or the time out that Detroit took when they ran the ball on third down, you know, down inside the five, they ran the ball on third down, didn't get it called the time out with a minute left. Right.

So of those four decisions, which was the worst? I will simply tell you that I have always thought that we have the smartest listeners in radio. I have always, people have listened to the show. I pride myself on the fact that I believe our listeners are smarter than other sports talk show listeners. And they got this one right. The worst decision was the time out because it ended the game. They couldn't stop the clock enough. It forced them to, I mean, it left your percentage, not that you had a high percentage anyway, but it forced the percentage of you being able to win the game. It left you only at whatever the percentage is of recovering an onside kick, which is not good.

It's like 4% in the league now because they've stacked the rules against you, right? Whether or not that should be the rule or not, regardless, the rules are stacked against you recovering an onside kick. And when Dan Campbell called that time out, it left him with two and not enough time, not enough time. San Francisco did have to actually put the ball in play three times. They did. But still, it did give you enough time.

Anyway, so congratulations on that. I will rank them for you. And by the way, of the fourth down tries, I think our listeners probably got it wrong. All right, of the field goal decisions, I think our listeners got it wrong.

I will rank them for you. The fourth quarter time out. Again, it ended the game. Now, because it was necessary, because they called that, to me, it takes away of the three field goal or go for it. To me, the one I thought was the most wrong was the one where they kicked the field goal after getting into the three yard line in the first half. Right.

Just work with me on this. Doesn't 28 to seven at halftime feel a lot bigger than 24 to seven? Sounds a lot bigger. Three touchdowns ahead, 17 points is still three scores. I get it. But man, 28 to seven changes everything on top of the fact that you were at the three. Right. And we hadn't heard it all game long, your identity, going for on fourth, going for it on fourth. They went for it on fourth more than anybody in the century. It's not that long a time.

It's 23 seasons. Okay, I get it. Still, something. It's what they have done all year long.

That's their identity. And on top of that, you were shoving it on San Francisco the entire half. You had the momentum.

They could not stop you on the ground. I had no chance. That was the time to go for the jugular and get it. They kicked the field goal.

Hey, 24 seven, you're up 17 points. I get it. That's a big deal too. But man, that was the time to go for it.

The others, you can make arguments either way. And I'm not saying that it was a great decision. Like my initial thought on their first drive of the second half was, yeah, you kick that one, you restore to 17 points because I didn't think San Francisco was fully operational at that point. They had a nice drive, ended up settling for a 33 yard field goal. I think it was a 33 yard field goal.

I want to get the right one. Yeah, it was a little over 40 yards, 47 yard field goal. Sorry. So they settled for a field goal. I still didn't think at that point, their offense was really clicking.

So you're restored to 17. I get it. But also, where are we that a 45 yard field goals automatic? So they could have missed the field goal too, in which case Dan Campbell's going, I should have gone for it because that's who we are.

Again, contradiction to what happened at the first half. That's the one. That's the one people. That was the worst one. The next part is the second field goal. To me, I can understand why kicking it. And to me, that was the one that was probably the second worst decision, if it's a bad decision or not. Okay. That's the one where a fourth quarter I have a chance to tie it. Yeah.

And if I tie it, and even if San Francisco scores a touchdown, I'm going to get I'm going to get the ball back with a chance to tie it. So to me, the second one was the of those two in the second half. The second one was the one where, yeah, that might have been it.

But I will say I didn't hate either. No. Right.

I know how we are wired. We all too often we add up the points at the end. Well, if we had just taken those two field goals. Yeah, but that's not the way that's not the way sports works.

Because we're calling different plays depending on different situations, which is why going forward in the fourth half in the first half, making it 28 to seven might have sent San Francisco on a completely different path. Yeah, exactly. So you should go with your identity. If you're going to go with your identity in the last half of the game, you should have done that in the first half. That was to me.

All right. Real reason why the 49ers are going to Vegas is they did finally get their act together on offense in the second half. They had 281 yards combined on their five scoring drives in a row.

Wow. And one of them was a 24 yard drive because of the fumble by Jamir Gibbs. Oh, by the way, we haven't even yet mentioned two dropped passes from Josh Reynolds, both of which would have been significant, one of which would have picked up the first first down on on fourth, fourth and two, right when they decided to go for it, you got to catch the ball. Second one was a third down conversion, which led to a punt, I believe. And then Jamir Gibbs fumbles the ball on the first play after San Francisco scores a touchdown. That led to the 24 yard drive. So Detroit made some mistakes with the ball.

There was also the Brandon Aiyuk, just incredible circus catch after it bounces off the face mask of Detroit's defensive back. Ridiculous. Yeah. So in a way, Detroit was unlucky. They were. Right.

But they didn't lose the game because Dan Campbell decided to go for it on fourth down. No, but we are. We all try to be big brained about these things. I get it.

And I'm not even a guy who's is a servant to the analytics. Well, the fourth down bot said you go for it. It gives you a 2.4% better chance of winning the game.

Yeah, we got to toss those in the trash. Also win probability. Nothing is more meaningless than in game win probability. 96% chance of winning the game. Yeah.

Guess what? Those things change with one play. Exactly. So we got to stop these things because they skew how we think about it. Right. Analytics is important. More often than not, it tells us what happened. Sure.

Not all the time, but more often than not, it tells us what happened, not necessarily why it happened. All right, let me get back to the Josh Reynolds. That first drop pass.

That was the first we'll say miscue by Detroit in the game. Until that point, just about everything they had done was hot. Perfect. Yep.

Right. They were rolling. And that one was the that was the one that kind of, I think, allowed doubt to creep in.

And I saw a very smart thing on Twitter. I forget who put it up there about momentum. There's I agree in sports. There's no such thing as momentum. Momentum is you can't measure it. What there is is confidence. We talk about this all the time. A confident team or a confident player is a better team or a better player because you're not thinking you're just being.

Yeah, doing. And when you are not confident, you're thinking. Thinking slows you down.

Crash Davis once said, don't think it can only hurt the ballclub. Yeah, right. You can't think you just have to be.

It has to be instinctual. Anyway, I thought that that drop was the we didn't know it was the beginning of the end. But to me, it really it ended up being the beginning of the end. The Gibbs fumble, the crazy 51 yard completion to Brandon. I look, which was, by the way, a phenomenal catch. Yes. In the grand scheme of stay on your toes. Ciao.

I mean, it should have been interception, but it was a phenomenal catch. All right. Here's Dan Camp. We have spent the entire time on. All right. So let me get to Kansas City, Baltimore game because we'll. Brents is going to join us in about five or six minutes. So, gosh, we spent the entire time. Good games to talk about. All right. We'll hear all the sound later. I promise you. The Ravens have to be the happiest bunch in the world that if you could be happy after losing a home game in the AFC Championship game, because of all the conversation about the second game, we forget that the Ravens pretty much threw up on their own shoes.

They did in the first game. I don't want to take anything away from Kansas City. Patrick Mahomes may go down as the greatest quarterback ever.

I'm not kidding. Yeah, no, he's definitely working on it. If he wins this Super Bowl and I am picking against him. No, I just not.

Nope. So I'm if he wins this Super Bowl, he's got three. He's been a starter in the league for five years, especially after this season. But he's at least been consistently good. And he's had nothing to work with most of the year. So now he's got one weapon and nobody can stop Travis Kelsey. No, unless he retires.

If Kelsey retires now, we're yeah, we're talking about a different animal. But I ain't picking against Patrick Mahomes. Just tell you that right now. But the Ravens did everything they could possibly do to lose the game. They tried it was almost as though they all had the Chiefs plus three and a half. Right?

Yes. So you're a running team. First and foremost, you can throw it. You're great at throwing it.

At the very least your balance. How did you only run it 16 times? Ridiculous. I'm blown away by that it was baffling to me. And and some of those 16 rushing attempts were Lamar Jackson scrambles. You were never down by more than 10. How is it that you forgot the run game? What got you there? I don't even I can't even wrap my mind around the fact that you forgot that you're a run team first. It's like Kelsey was trying to get into Tucker's head, but he got into the whole team's head.

Apparently, I don't know. There was there was some shenanigans. There was shenanigans. I loved it.

I loved every every single aspect of it. And with all of that said, the Ravens probably should have won the game in the second half. Right? You have. First of all, you scored. You were you were driving down Zay Flowers.

What a what a 10 minute stretch he had. Oh, yeah. 51 yard reception, which you exclamation point by spinning the ball at your opponent and then flexing over him.

Dude. We can all we can have a debate about how stupid the rule is that taunting is illegal in the NFL. It's a stupid rule.

It is. But it's a rule. And it didn't just get instituted before the game.

Everybody knows it. We call this. Hey, how stupid do you want to be penalty? They should announce it that way. Personal foul unsportsmanlike conduct being dumb. Yeah.

Idiocracy. Right. Exactly. Right. 15 yards.

Zay Flowers. They shouldn't even use your number. They should call your name out. Yeah. So you have that.

Then he makes two more two more good plays. Right. Right. And he's going into the end zone. Yep.

Looking good. No. Drops it. Oh, it's a great play by Sneed to knock it out.

Sure. I mean, if the ball doesn't get knocked out, he scores the touchdown. But I mean, Kansas City ain't gonna let you in the end zone.

No. So if you're going to try and score there, I'm not against that. You have to make sure that ball is secured. End of discussion.

And if you're down inside the one, you're down inside the one. But that was the mistake there. Then he gets mad and he slams his hand against the bench and his helmet at the same time.

And he ends up with a cut. Whatever. I mean, I don't think that impacted the rest of the game. But the Ravens also lost their composure.

And by the way, Lamar Jackson, you're going to be the unanimous MVP. Yeah. That was a terrible pass to throw. You actually could have scored two touchdowns in the second half and won the game.

Before I say that that is true, I will say who among us doesn't believe that Patrick Mahomes wouldn't have figured out a way to win that game anyway. Exactly. Right.

So 13 seconds. It's all right. It's all moot. Yeah. But my gosh, the Ravens did everything they could to destroy their own chances of winning that game. So that's how interesting both of these games were is that I babbled. We didn't use any of the sound I wanted to use.