Transcript of The Big Suey: A Little Steam (feat. Dianna Russini)

Welcome to the Big Suey, presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Lebitard podcast. I'm sorry. I'm not going to apologize for that. In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries if they're just there. That hasn't happened to you guys? I've done it. And now, here's the marching band to nowhere, Fatface and the Habitual Liar.

This episode of the Dan Leventard Show is presented by DraftKings.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, boy. Zazlo. That big of a deal.

Professional.

You need me to take over?

Mike, take out your notes.

Here, let's pull the goalie. Yes, here. On a read. Let's get rid of Zetina. Just let me keep going. Go ahead and-Fast presenting sponsor. Yeah, Zaz, I'm sorry to do this to you, but after feuting with Greg Cody, that's a penalty of some sort. Oh, no.

I would think so.

Minor penalty, two minutes. Delay of show.

He didn't even finish the read. No.

That's how it's done, Greg. Greg, show us how a professional broadcaster does it.

This episode of The Dan Levatard Show is presented by DraftKings. Draftkings, the Crown is yours.

That is the way to do it. That is why you're the legendary columnist, Greg Cody, king of all media in South Florida, deserves more respect, but you should strip his Hall of Fame vote. Okay. Jeremy, you I want to, please, before we get to Diana Rusini, just recap what it is that we did in that last hour.

Yeah, I just want to clarify a couple of things. The new Kurt Flood will be quarterbacking Miami in what will be the game of the century in November, throwing to the greatest white ride receiver in program history and maybe the city of Miami's history, who also happened to have a perfect SAT score. Definitely worth noting. He's big, he's athletic, he's fast, and Miami's defensive line will be better than the one that just had two first-round picks on the edges for the first time in program history. Do I have all that right?

It about covers it. Cool.

I don't have any regrets about the last hour, and we'll get to Diane except for one. I do have a regret. If it appeared flippant to our audience in any way that the Stugatz thing is something that we're enjoying here privately as you react and get annoyed, Please understand that I love Stugatz. I will always love Stugatz. I invited him to our watch party. We've been inviting him all month to be on the show, and we want him around here. The door is wide open for him. He started his own projects 3: 00 to 5: 00 PM daily on Fox Sports Radio. It's a giant thing. He's a live radio monster. He missed it, and he's doing that 3: 00 to 5: 00. And Stugats & Company, in general, is something that you should check out, and he'll give you whatever information he wants about when he's coming back. We don't know. I'd love for him to be back.

You could call him the new Kirk flood of radio.

Just so you know, though, I don't want anyone in our audience thinking that this is some flippant joke because there's stuff here that would be funny, and I would love to make content out of, but I'm not going to out of respect to a relationship that I really value and will always value.

It's not the high road if you have to tell people you're taking it.

I didn't mean to suggest that. I'm just telling people because they think we're being flippant here because of what Greg did there with New God, and I don't I don't want them to think that. It's not something... I don't want our audience to think that I'm enjoying the fact that Nugats isn't around here, and I don't want it to feel like that to anybody, here included, because I'd love to have him back. I want him back.

Way to ruin the mood, Greg.

You got to turn your microphone on. Oh, my God. He didn't turn on the mic.

Minor penalty, two minutes. Delay of show.

Two notes early. This is... If there was any validity to New God's, boy, did you nuke your chances.

She's the senior NFL insider for The Athletic, the host of The Scoop City podcast. Diana, thank you for joining us. I'd like any fresh reported materials that you have for us on how weird this Mike McDaniel thing was, where he's got a number of options. He signs with the chargers, but it's pending if the Raven's job or rater's job or Bill's job or Josh Allen become available, and now he's back with the chargers. Was this normal to you? And welcome, by the way.

Hi, guys. Yeah, you know what? It's actually normal. Look, this is a high-profile head coach who is an offensive-minded head coach, right? And that's a big need right now around the league. So it was smart It's all about him to scope it out, figure out maybe he could get another head coaching gig after the Miami Dolphins fired him. So I don't think a lot of people realize this, but you can sign on as an offensive coordinator. You can sign the papers. You can do all of it. You can make the big announcement on social media. And if, let's just say, for example, right now, the Buffalo Bills call him and say, Hey, Mike, we want you to be the head coach of the Buffalo Bills and coach Josh Allen. He can do that. He has every right to just take a head coaching job because the rules state that If it's a higher position, you're able to do that. So a lot of people don't do that, right? Because that's going to ruin relationships. Obviously, Jim Harbaugh is not going to like that. So if you were sensing some weirdness with it, it's because it was weird.

I think Mike had desires to still be a head coach and wanted opportunity, but also realized if that didn't shake out, the best opportunity would be with the chargers. And I don't think he really wanted to piss off Jim Harbaugh through this either, right? Because he gave him his word, Hey, I'm going to be here. I'm going to be your coach. But he was still checking on all his options. But for now, it's official. I don't think he's going to back out. But he's not going to back out because I don't get the sense that any of these openings are going to be hiring him in the next few hours here. Just a heads up, a lot of hiring is going to be going down over the next few hours.

Diana, it seems to me that coaching Justin Herbert for that team is the best possible path back to a head coaching job for Mike McDaniel. Do you agree? And if so, why?

Yeah, I do, because we still have yet to see Justin take off. I think we've talked about this on the show how good he is. I think most people that cover and follow football believe that Justin Herbert is a very talented quarterback, but he can't get over the pump. So if Mike McDaniel can walk in here and maybe bring this offense alive, you absolutely can get back in. And I think that's the way a lot of these guys are approaching it. If you can just have one good year and get a young quarterback functioning, you become the hottest head coach candidate. I mean, Cliff Kingsbury was fired, and he got head coaching jobs after this Washington Commander's year that wasn't even that good. There is just such a drought for smart, offensive-minded head coaches is right now. And that's really the problem that you're seeing with this cycle. I think the leader of men, we'll call it that, that description, I think there's a good amount of them. I think more specific to offensive-minded, there's not as many.

Quick follow-up on Mike McDaniel. A source of mine with the Dolphins told me that the reason he got so much interest is that he qualified under the Rooney Rule. Oh, come on. Is that true? Come on. Do you believe that's true?

No, come on. Wait a minute. No, but it's- Wait a minute. What's that? I happen to know? Excuse me, Diana. I just want to know, is that original- He happens to know. You just said a source. You never do that. Forgive me, Diana, but you just reported. Are you reporting that a source with the Dolphins said to you that he got so many interviews because he's a Black candidate.

I think that's part of the reason why. And I'm wondering- Informed. And I'm wondering if Diana believes that's true or if she thinks he got that many interviews based solely on on merit. I'm just curious. I was told that the night of the national championship game, Monday night by- We're not questioning you.

We're just saying you're reporting that because that's going to be national news. That's a tough look for the dolphins. I mean, it's so ridiculous what you're saying that that's going to become national news.

All I'm saying is, and I don't know the exact number, if Mike McDaniel was interviewed by five or six teams, let's say, for a head coaching job, does Diana think that part of the reason might have been that that higher That interview qualified under the Rooney Rule?

That's all. In Mike's case, I do not believe that to be true. I am not questioning that somebody told you that. I believe that someone maybe shared that with you. But obviously, that's just their opinion. They don't know whether or not the Bills were really serious about Mike, the Brown. I know, and they were serious. And it has everything to do with what we just talked about in terms of his offensive mind. And look, I know it wasn't spectacular there in Miami. But some of these situations, and we talked about this last week, so many of these guys get fired and their stock goes up. Mike went from being just the bizarre coach that has genius moments, but no one's really sure what he's about to. Every team that was looking for a head coach had shown interest, reached out to his camp, because I do think there's some untapped talent there. And if he can be linked to the right quarterback with a good ownership group, I do think he could have success. So I feel very comfortable saying all the Mike McDaniel interviews were because people believe that Mike McDaniel is a good coach.

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Don Levatard.

Are you on You're a fan right now? Did Mike Greenberg call you yet? Are you ever going to go back to ESPN? People think it's so weird you're a writer now. All those years on TV, all those years, and now you write.

Who reads that? Stugatz.

Why did he take a job at the Atlantic? Mom, I work at the Athletic. What?

You're on YouTube? This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugats.

You mentioned that it's not all that uncommon for a coach to have a coordinator position locked up and still take interviews. But this interview process, at least publicly, seemed a little erratic. He seemed interested in jobs and then decided to pull himself out of certain interviews. Maybe he read some writing on the wall, or did he just value the LA spot?

What I whom Diana was that his agent was leveraging. Hey, look how wanted my guy is. One of you want to make him a head coach, right?

Yeah, I think there's a lot of that, right? This is the time of year where we become, and I want to say we, us media members, become one of the most important parts of this. I don't call that many people right now. People call me, right? Because they want me to come on your show right now and be like, You know who is a star? And whatever name that is, because it helps. There I'm not going to reveal who it is, but there is a candidate that went through this cycle now that is 1,000 % constructed by the media because every team I've talked to was like, Oh, my goodness. Let's guess. How?

Well, go ahead.

Philip Rivers.

Phillip Rivers, for sure. Let's go ahead and guess. No, no, no, no, no.

The Phillip Rivers thing actually had a little steam at one point. I assumed that was a, let's just be creative, think outside the box, try something different. His agent is the same agent as Josh Allen. Maybe that was just a favor.

You say a little steam. What's the steam level here?

Yeah, give us a steam level. Like a choo-choo train? What's a little steam? What's a little steam? Like a little teapot? How much steam are we talking about? A little teapot, like just some hot steam off of your latte.

Coffee on a cold day.

Yeah, coffee on a cold day. That's little.

That's nothing.

It's a sad amount of steam, I would argue.

But remember, too, he meant on Friday, and then- It's one little. I think I reported... No, I just I reported yesterday. I don't know what day I reported, but it was pretty quick. It was like in and out. He met, he pulled out, which I know everybody makes the same joke. In and out steam. I know the same joke about Philip Rivers. Right. Pulling out.

Doesn't pull out. The first time he ever- Well, the Philip Rivers thing I thought was just an absence of offensive mind.

It is funny to me to think of the idea that there are four guys in the league, and I got to go get Philip Rivers because otherwise, McCarthy's not going to... Every other offensive guy McCarthy can handle, but not these Whizz kids.

Well, look, these Whizz It's what we're seeing a little bit of a trend right now. These great play callers, not very good game managers, right? Look at these playoffs. I think Sean McVay would have loved to have had a little extra help with someone in his ear giving him some guidance. It's the same guy who's in Mike Vrabel's ear in New England. His name's John Stryker. They call him Stretch. He was with McVay last year and left and now joined Vrabel again. They were together in Tennessee.

Diana, take us inside of that for people who don't understand the sophistications that we're talking about. It's fundamentally unreasonable to ask these people in these pressurized situations in 25 seconds to get the play call right from the booth every time with the substitutions because the other guy is moving really fast, too. It's a really hard job. It's so hard. Take us into the headset of where even McVeigh can't keep up with everything. Yeah.

I mean, I've never had the headset on, but Chase, Daniel, my co-host on Scoop City, has done this for me because I've been interested just the way you are. I'm like, What does it sound like? What does it look like? I don't understand how people are able to comprehend it, because not only do you have to have situational awareness, you have to think about the play ahead, also be cognizant of time, timeouts. And the best game managers that I've covered have help. They have somebody telling them in their ear what to do, when to go for it, what the odds are. And then you mix that with gut and feel for the game. And look, even some of the coaches that I respect at the highest level Sean Payton on Sunday, still makes mistakes, especially if you're a play caller. And I do think that that is something to keep in mind when we're watching some of these organizations that have success. Are they the play callers? Because to call plays and be the head coach, I'm always going to say that's really hard. And keep that in mind, too, in this coaching cycle, these are questions being asked, are you going to call plays or not?

And most teams don't really want their head coach being involved in play calls because of this situation. It costs games, and it costs the Broncos a game.

Diana, this part is fascinating to me, the specialization of these things. Mike McDaniel is obviously someone who is very good at coaching offense. Yes. Period. You don't need to tell me anything else, he's one of these people who's obviously very good at coaching offense. The idea that even McVay's and the Paytons of the world would be like, I got this, and then do stupid things because they're not willing to have a staff of 10 and be ego-less enough for Vrabel to be like, What? I got a 54% chance on fourth down here. If I go for it, I want to play probabilities here. It seems really ego-filled for guys like McVay and Payton to have to handle everything.

It does. But there is so much on the desk of a head coach in terms of what... They only have so much time in the day. So what are they going to invest in? And so from what I understand, and even from covering Vrabel in Tennessee as much as I did, they put significant amount of time in obsessing over game situations and even the officials. They study the officials and are a little over the top with the details of that. I'd be curious to see how many head coaches are doing it at that level because you see it in the game. They practice it, and then it reveals itself when the pressure's on. And they don't make There are a lot of mistakes. I don't want to jinks them for the Super Bowl here, but they're usually making decisions because they're prepared for it. I do think there is an obsessive factor that helps. And it makes sense, right? Because think about where a lot of this staff comes from. It's the Belichick way. There's not a lot of similarities between Bill Belichick and Mike Vrabel, but when it comes to that stuff, the details, the game management, I think they're the same person.

Walk me through some of this part it, though, right? So McDaniel is viewed as a clown because the media is loud when he's not a clown. He's obviously very good at this specialty. Now, Vrabel, if Vrabel is someone who's going to know this official, I need to throw deep more because he calls pass interference 16% more time. Does Vrabel then have to know that I can't wear the white uniforms because in the second half, the snow is coming and nobody's going to be able to see anything and I've got a game plan for a second half that's going to be ridiculous weather? If you know what the referees' tendencies are, don't you need to know what the weather there is in the second half?

You do. And I'm actually surprised that Sean Payton didn't have some type of preparation for this. This is the same man who had a player on the Saints where cleats that blended with the white hashes and had him lay down in the end zone to run a trick play. And they called it Chamaeleon, the play. He has all these incredible I mean, he meets with the football ops people to talk about the amount of smoke that came out of the Superdome when the players would run out. He is not somebody that is lazy when it comes to the small stuff. So I am a little surprised. I am not surprised that the Patriots were prepared for the snow at all and purposely did that. That's without a doubt. Everything they do is intentional. I just don't think they talk about it as much.

Diana, you said that the Philip Rivers Buffalo thing was definitely for real. How is that possible? Little steam.

Little steam.

Let's talk about it. I mean, he's proven to be a very good quarterback himself. Some people believe that he's been a good Coach on the high school level, that he understands the position. Maybe there's things that Josh Allen needs as the leader of the team that Phillip Rivers could understand, and he can lean into that. Josh Allen is sitting in on every single meeting for a reason. They value his opinion. They value what he needs, what he wants, and perhaps what hasn't been given to him. Look, I think the Buffalo Bill is made of firing, knowing that it could happen, but I still think you'd be surprised how many teams don't have a lot of preparation for this stuff. It's not like they have a long list sitting in their desk. I mean, some GMs do, but where you're like, okay, if I'm going to fire this guy, this is the answer. Look at the Browns right now. You fire Kevin Stefansky, and we're waiting right now. I think they're going to make a hire in the next few hours here. Who are they going to hire that's going to make you guys believe that the Cleveland Browns are going to be competitive?

They have a Pro Bowl quarterback.

I understand the skepticism. He's never been a head coach beyond the high school level, but I think Philip Rivers just did prove that he's largely in tune with today's game. And he's got Josh McCown had some of this, too, where everyone just acknowledges that guy would make a great coach. Seemed to be able to rally the chips, be a really good vibes guy. And what he did just this past season was incredibly impressive. I wouldn't doubt him.

I guess, Diana, before you answer that, we just went through a whole conversation about how hard being the head coach is and how fast everything moves Yes, I get it. He's been a head coach in high school, but it's not like some 30-year legendary high school coach who wants to be the coach for two years.

The funny part about this, Diana, it is really funny. We just talked about how hard it is for it to be the coach. Now make it the quarterback who's got I got two guys coming off the edges who are 300 pounds, and he's got to think fast, too. So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to put Matt Ryan in charge of my franchise, and I'm going to hire Troy Akeman and ask for all his advice. I'm going to get all these guys who process quickly and see if they can be better decision-makers than the ones that I have. Philip Rivers, you've got to assign, especially given his skillset. He wasn't physically that good. You have to assign the fact that Philip Rivers has some genius when it comes to football in his head. Now, I don't think it translates. I don't think he could teach it to others. I think it's silly to make these guys go to the front of the line and give them all of the power in your organization and say, Hey, are you all so good at people management when somebody's like, shitty employee and you're running- That's the formula right now, right?

That's obviously the trend. And you just painted a perfect picture of what every owner is looking at. They're going, John Lynch has had success with Kyle Shanahan out in San Francisco. Dameiko Ryans has been a great leader for Houston, makes them competitive. And as you mentioned, Matt Ryan, Mike Vrabel, former player. Anthony Weaver is getting tons of opportunity right now, former player. I think that makes a lot of owners comfortable because they think that that's the best way to rally these guys because they've done it before. Yet, I still don't think it makes you completely ready, right? Just because you played the game, as we've all seen before, just because you played, it doesn't mean you can teach it. It certainly takes a certain type of leader and And manager. You mentioned people manager. That is such a big part of this. And anytime I've spoken to general managers after they fire head coaches, that's usually what it comes down to. Coaches are bad managers, the ones that get fired. So I think that guidance is making owners feel good. Matt Ryan must know. He'll know if this guy is for real, if this coach is really good.

Because at the end of the day, I still don't truly believe that those that are hiring these coaches know exactly what it is that they want. And it's not an easy process. I think that's the other part of this. It is very difficult to find the right coach. We can laugh and joke about the hirings and the firings and the owners that have moved on from some coaches and stayed too long with the others. I just think it's a really hard position to figure out.

Subscribe to the Athletic Scoop City podcast with Diana Rusina. Thank you, Diana. Didn't get to the eagles coordinator stuff that probably enrages her husband at the moment. Next time. More coordinator talk next time.

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Don Lebatard.

Quiet man. Yes. I'm a married man. I don't cheat on my wife despite that gratuitous line back in my day. That you wrote.

Stugatz.

I wish you were here, my wife. I really miss her. No, I don't. That's the thing about being married. You're not allowed to say, I don't miss my wife. I've been gone two days. I haven't been gone long enough to miss my wife. I'm sorry. I call her. I'm on the phone. You just I'm going to be gone with her for 30 seconds. What am I? Hello. All right. All right. We'll see you. All right. Then I'm going to see her in two days. I was jumping Charlie? Good.

This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugatz.

I want to examine with you guys before Pablo Tori comes on here with his latest bombshell, NBA-related, that is part of the shared reporting that he is doing in a very difficult media time. For those of you who do not understand what's happening in the media, it is not dying. It is dead. The mainstream media cannot keep up with some of the things that it needs to keep up with in order to hold truth to power these days. And so Pablo Torre is coordinating here, and he's done this a couple of times. He did it with Matt Ischbia and Dan Gilbert, a story that was complicated and involves mortgage details and business details that explain to you how it is that billionaires get into power. But he is teaming up with Hunterbrooke to tell you that the Memphis grizzly's owner, Hunterbrooke, is reporting there are some ties to the Russian War that you might find interesting, even though the news is getting complicated, Zaz, and journalism is getting complicated. So these stories are hard to get in front of people because it's just much easier to talk about who do you think the next offensive coordinator is going to be.

But getting back to what it is Diana was saying, Pablo will join us in about 10 minutes. So it's not just Matt Ryan, Here's the keys to the Falcons. You go right to the front of the line, or Philip Rivers, Come teach us your genius. It's also Tom braided, You can have every job that you want. In football, you can break all the barriers. You can be a great broadcaster. Also, you can run the Raiders if you want, because these people are air traffic control for the chaos of stress management in America on Sundays. So you think Sean Payton and Sean McVay has got a lot to think about. No, they're just on the sidelines of this nonsense. The whole thing runs through the quarterback. He's the economy. He's the epicenter of all of it. Sam Darnal better be better than Stafford. And that's verse on the corner coming after him. All of this stuff moves impossibly fast. We watch on Sundays and have no earthly idea the skillset required to be air traffic control at the center of that chaos where the next guy is going to hurt your brain. It's nuts what those people do for a living.

But it doesn't mean he can run the Falcon, and it doesn't mean that braided is going to fix the Raiders.

I'm surprised we don't see more former high-level quarterbacks in these roles.

They don't want to do it. They want to stop thinking. That has to be it. They want to stop thinking when their career is done. Every 25 seconds, you're going to fire a missile at me?

Right. I mean, these people, I think everybody would say they're high achievers. I can understand how someone looks at Matt Ryan and says, This guy probably will be good at anything I make him do.

Or you can just be Dan Moreno, and I'm never mad at you. You know what I mean? That's why Moreno just chose, Oh, I get to go to all the games. I get to still be Dan Moreno, but I don't have any of the pressure.

He was a bust. Most of them don't even want to go into broadcasting, though. It's such a high stress job, and it physically hurts so much that many of them don't want to be Elway and start running the Broncos. They just have a hard time finding anything after football. Can you imagine? Think about this for a second. I don't know if it's trauma, but my guess is their body has to store some trauma over 15 years every 40 seconds while I'm out on a field, somebody's going to try and hurt me, and I've got to make these decisions really, really fast. I got to do it with a clock on me every few seconds. Do you think that that person, after retiring, finds anything in the real world that will ever feel to them the way that felt, the power of that, the strength of it. I'm the center of my city. Everyone in my city is watching me right now and is going to get mad or happy with the consequence of every decision I've made. Make for 25 seconds. It's just totally insane around me. At all times, I'm the one who's always in charge.

There's no filling that void after you retire. It's hard for some athletes to retire because you lose your identity at 35 years old. It's hardest for the quarterbacks because where the hell are you going to get I'm the greatest gladiator every weekend? I get to be either Baker Mayfield or I get to be Sam Darnold last Sunday with whatever I leave with because I've got in the trophy case, I got the MVP's head in in my hand.

It's why I can understand why a quarterback would want to be a head coach. I don't really understand why they'd want to run an organization, deal with the finances, and the player personnel moves, and all the things that come with that. But the leadership of being a quarterback should translate to the leadership of being a head coach because you're used to running that group of men. In a different way, you're just running an offense. You're not running the defensive side as well. But there's also the challenge of working on the schematic side of it. If you're somebody like Philip Rivers, that played for as long as he did, he watched eras of offense change over time. And he actually was on an offense in the chargers that was part of ushering in a new era, throwing to the running back more. He might enjoy the challenge of trying to continue to up date offense and get a quarterback to a new place.

Can we talk a little bit, though, about how dumb some of this is with our analysis, given what I'm about to say? Everyone listening to this knows that McVay and Sean Payton are good at their jobs, and those two coaches are responsible for their teams with decisions they made, not being in the Super Bowl and ending the seasons of their team because they did the incorrect thing. Not worse than Vrabel. You will not It seems to me that Sean Payton is worth than Vrabel because this is how we're measuring. Play 17 games, all 17. In the end, you're just doing it to get home field advantage because those three points matter and you want to be at home in that game because being at home in that game, oh, our quarterbacks hurt. Never mind about the measurements. Never mind. We played 17 games to get that advantage, and then it all goes away. If it were actually about picking the best team and not making sure you get the televised game dollars on Sunday, they'd wait eight months till Bo Nicks is healthy and then let the teams play. If it was actually about who's best, because the Patriots did not beat the Bronco's best team.

They just beat the one that had a shitty quarterback. That's an asonite. And Payton lost them the game with the shitty quarterback. And instead of being celebrated, he's killed today because he went for it on fourth and won with the A shitty quarterback.

Are you having an existential thing when it comes to football? Because it's never about who's best. It's about who wins. And who wins gets to call themselves the best. You're applying a give me an '82 fixture type of season logic to a sport that's never been about that.

I'm just telling you that McVay and Payton are considered routinely the best, and they are the reasons their team is not playing in the Super Bowl.

Yeah, but why is that any different from when... This weekend where Darnold was better than staff Stafford this past Sunday, but no one believes that Darnold's actually better than Stafford. The coach can have a better day than that coach, even though we know he's not that good.

It was announced yesterday by Jeremy that the Seahawks are clearly better than the Rams. So if you're telling me the Seahawks are clearly better than the Rams, and I just saw Darnold clearly be better than Stafford on Sunday on third down when it matters most, then what's the big leap to saying that Darnold, if he's better on Sunday like Seattle was, he gets be better for that day forever the way that the Seahawks are.

Well, I think you're putting a little too much, I don't know if value is the right word, but it's not all on the quarterback. There are other players on the team, and Seattle is definitely a better team, even if their quarterback is not as good as the Ram's quarterback.

Because their defense is clearly better than LA's defense. It matters. It matters. That's why I thought Denver had a great chance to beat New England is because of their defense, despite Jared Stittam. They didn't, but they They had a chance to because of defense.

But we talked about offense in Philip Rivers and Mike McDaniels. The thing about this stuff that's noisy and dumb is you will not convince me that McDaniels is not good at producing offense. It's a hugely valuable thing to have. If you give it to me, I'll be fine with that as my head coach. I don't need a lot else because McVay and Payton are good at offense, too. It's their defenses. Payton got there because of his defense. Mcvay was betrayed by his. For all his offense, McVay couldn't beat the number one defense in the league, which collapsed at the finish line. The Seahawks showed you nothing in that football game that suggested they were the number one defense in the league. They didn't show you what Houston did in the playoffs. They didn't show you what Denver did in the playoffs defensively. What proof do you have in that last game that Seattle is good at defense? They held the Rams and Stafford on third down. They also allowed Stafford to have a game of his life type of performance.

Yeah, I don't necessarily agree with that. I mean, you could be the great defense. They still gave up, what was it, 27 points to the Rams. And in the biggest spot of the game on fourth down, they came up with the stop in the end zone. It matters.

I don't think that's a bad battle between the top offense and the top defense.

After the Rams dropped the countdown pass, the two plays before that, that would have not resulted in that fourth down. It doesn't matter as I'm saying. I could take any one play from any one of those games this week and change the result entirely. Right.

But I watched that game on Sunday. I'm like, Yeah, that's how that plays out. Top offense versus top defense. The top offense is going to get theirs occasionally. What can the defense do in the crucial moments? Can the offense break down the defense? So I do think at times, yeah, it looked like the Rams were having their way and had the better of a familiar opponent. Remember, these are division rivals. Sean McVay knows how to attack this defense probably better than anybody else, but that's the top dogs in their respective areas. And I thought it played out the way that it was hyped up to be.

Dan, I don't know how many times we have to tell you all that matters is.

That's right. All that matters is.