Muse

You know you rock when you roll with the Seahawks Marshawn Lynch, Beast Moe with his dreadlocks Rolls and passes the ball to the endzone touchdown you know we're gonna get the crown in super bowl 24 team we get the ring the bling listen to the crowd sing seahawks seahawks seahawks we block that offense to say we'll lose is such an offense and nonsense we got the best defense being the other quarterback comes with the expense of the act of being sacked to hope the broncos have enough time to react to the level of game the hawks are bringing that evening a super bowl sunny because they're gonna go all the way for the win starting when the game begins all the way to the end of the game and to go down in fame as a super bowl champions of this year this team should be feared you better saddle up when you roll with seattle brooks seem like some old cattle i realized something andrew if we keep doing the

no point for i think it's like maybe 95 more years we'll get to super bowl 124 which i bet for simplicity they'll refer to as super bowl 24 or whatever whatever it is that k dude says well the

problem there is and this is what confuses everybody people because we weren't on super bowl 24 no he says 2014 we get the ring he he breaks in between four and teen so people think it's super bowl 24 but he's saying super bowl 2014 get the ring well maybe we can edit that

or something yeah post so that it'll because i mean if there's anything we strive for with that intro it's relevance i mean i don't want to start off yucking any yums or i should say yucking any yucks because we have some dear friends in denver and friends who are broncos fans but i will say the broncos kind of looking like some old cattle is also you know it's not not lining up with how this last season went i don't say that to rub anything in i'm not here to i'm not here to um you know squeeze any lemon into any wounds um i'm here to talk about this quite unlikely thing that is the seattle seahawks qualifying for the postseason something i did not in any way see

coming did you um well i guess it depends when you would have asked me that certainly not for the

before they were six and three yeah not we all thought it was gonna happen well here's one thing

i will say about that is i i was thinking about this yesterday as i was putting around the kitchen Like, I don't I don't give a lot of credence to preseason football stuff. We were talking yesterday on TV, tell how much we love spring training for baseball.

Right. And then I say one thing really quickly. Yeah. And the two percent chance that there's someone who is somehow listening to this, but they don't know what TBTL is. This is called the no point conversion. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Andrew Walsh. Yes. And how did you find it in the TBTL feed?

I don't know I'm that's probably not a thing but you're going to be annoyed when I keep doing my resets and I keep sweeping the quarter hour later but anyway yeah so yesterday we were talking about how spring training also represents like the changing of the seasons and you're whatever like everything that we love about spring training right I think I used to feel that way a little bit about the preseason of the NFL like the those preseason games because I was so hungry or thirsty or missing football at the time the past couple of years I felt that less maybe that reflects my my passion for the sport maybe somewhat dwindling but either way what I was reflecting on was the fact that this preseason for the Seahawks was the darkest preseason I could think of of any team I followed in the NFL during my say 15 year fandom now like

they were when you say darkest you just mean the lowest oh you mean them actually losing

they were losing every game but they were losing it in ways like you're not supposed to care about whether or not you win or lose a preseason football game you're supposed to be watching other things but even the things you were supposed to be watching just sounded miserable i didn't watch any of those games when i was getting instant reactions on the text chain on twitter listening to sports radio during those four or five weeks it was just like there was nothing like people who were the biggest homers on the radio could not squeeze any good news out of what the seahawks were showing in the preseason i think they lost every game in the preseason i think so And I think in, like, really embarrassing ways, right? And I think they started Geno Smith every time. So, anyway, beginning of the season, no, I expected this to be a terrible season. They got off to a good start, and then we all started thinking, hey, maybe there's something here. Well, that's true. The first two games were rough.

They were, like, two and three, I think.

But then yesterday, or on Sunday, when we're actually watching the final game of the season.

season and it didn't occur to me about my feelings later that i was like i think i always expected them just as of sunday like i think i would have been way disappointed if they hadn't gotten into the playoffs on sunday because there's something about me when i'm watching a seahawks game at least in the in the run-up to the game even with the very first play of the game being an interception i still think i just generally expected them to win and make the playoffs and i don't know why I just don't know why

You have only, I mean, mostly There have been, you know, some not super great seasons But I think most of your time following the Seahawks Has been during an extremely blessed period Where we just win games in the fourth quarter Russell Williams, is it Williams or Wilson?

Quickly, hold on, I think I have a song that identifies

Seahawks, Seahawks Like, Russell Wilson just pulls it out, a rabbit out of a hat like it's been an unbelievably great overall it's been an unbelievably great i don't know seven eight years and so it does yeah begin to create this sense that like okay we're gonna lose some games and we may even have a season like you know we didn't go to the playoffs last season we're gonna have some bummer seasons but we're never gonna be like one of those two and 15 teams like we're never just gonna be totally feckless totally out of it and i think honestly i think that that sort of battery or meter sort of got recharged for me this year because i was trying to emotionally prepare myself for this being one of those seasons one of those sort of lost seasons where you just you have to bite the bullet and tell yourself we're gonna get these draft picks from denver this is what you have to do every once in a while in the nfl is have a really bad year or in the case of the jets 12 really bad years i'm not saying that to rub it in for the jets i I was looking at some stats the other day, and I thought, man, boy, we have been blessed with the Seahawks. There are teams that during this whole era haven't been to the playoffs. The New York Jets haven't been in 12 years, I think. So anyway, I feel like this kind of – this recharged that sense for me. Like, as long as Pete Carroll is there and John Schneider, I don't think – I mean, we're not going to be like Philadelphia this year. We're not going to be even San Francisco this year But we're always going to be kind of in the mix Which is a nice thing, actually

Yeah, and it's funny that you mentioned the Jets Because I'm pretty sure that's where Jamal Adams came from, right? And there was a press conference, I think, two years ago When he was still, with his first year with Seattle And of course he's been very injury prone And we haven't seen him much And he was a little frustrating even when he was playing During various times last season But anyway, I really like him as a person And he brought great energy to the team, I thought And I remember him in a press conference, like there was some disappointment his first year, but like that they didn't end the season the way they wanted to. But they were still going to the playoffs. And he was like, you guys have had it too good for too long. Like we're going to the playoffs like that isn't just a given here in Seattle. We just take it as a given.

Yeah. And and I not to jump right past the the game that's looming on Saturday against San Francisco. But, I mean, I'm knocking wood as I say this, but, like, all indications are we should have a really good opportunity to get some super talented people in this next draft. And so you look at a team that was not expected to make the playoffs and did, and then you look at how not great things went in Denver, which, of course, only increases our draft picks or where we're going to get to, you know, pick those Denver picks. like uh it there's a lot of reason and you know you maybe get rashad penny back next year if he can stay healthy a rashad penny ken walker the third tandem seems pretty pretty bomb at running back so i mean to me this game on saturday is total gravy and i'm going into that with that mind going into it as a fan with that mindset like i think on paper now i don't know 10 points 10 points that's that's the initial line in other words san francisco is expected to win by 10 points, that's for betting purposes. That's a lot in the NFL. A 10-point spread is a lot. That is the better saying, man, the Seahawks are not even, they do not belong in the conversation with the Niners, which is probably not wrong because, I mean, the Niners have won, what, 12 games in a row? I mean, they're 13-4, right? And I think, were they, I forget how they started off. They had four losses a long time ago. like they have basically been on like a crazy winning streak and even with losing garoppolo and this guy brock purdy is like i mean brock purdy i think has the third longest winning streak for a rookie in the history of the nfl like so he's in pretty rare air right now and they got christian mccaffrey who's just you know really good so and they're deep

defense is fearsome so there's not any reason to my mind why we should expect a seahawk victory uh going into this game but as scott van pelt was saying the other night on espn oh man i have so many thoughts on that by the way sunday night after the lions uh beat the packers thus getting the seahawks into the playoffs i was so excited to watch scott van pelt on espn because it was like i had not really watched the seahawk game properly i was watching it projected onto some tyvek while i was trying to do remodeling but i watched the sunday night game and now i'm home at my real house and i'm like i'm gonna just i'm gonna be so excited for them to show this crazy overtime win by the seahawks that got them into the playoffs they had shown the green bay highlights twice and like an eight minute interview with aaron rogers post-game presser with aaron rogers they had literally they were covering like curling before they got to a team that got into the playoffs with no expectation they were going to make the playoffs i'm talking about the seattle seahawks here when i talk about this team the seahawks who made it who at least got themselves in the position to go to the playoffs by winning in overtime that was like literally so far down the list of things it was like jerry jones's um new um venetian veneers on his teeth good bad believable like what are we talking about on espn i mean i understand they wanted to cover the packers and the lions fine cover that but the next story should be a team got into the playoffs today they're called the seattle seahawks i was rip shit about that although it would be you'd be

even more rip shit if that was the case and the green bay had won like i just want i mean listen i know that some of our dearest listeners and friends are green bay fans i am not i have a distaste for aaron rogers oh my god that's right i just remembered i drunkenly texted you guys some very bad words about how much i i i struggle to come up with the words of how much i dislike that human being and thus the the team around him um and um can you imagine if they had won because green bay got off to a very rocky start and it looked like it looked you know people were predicting the end of aaron rogers career or at least his career in green bay with the way the season was going but then it looked like if he had won this game he would have crawled his way back into relevance i mean they would have been i mean every network would have been all over his ass and like i just love the fact that if they were covering that game a lot it was because they freaking lost to the lions who were only playing for pride and the red nose of their coach well

I'll tell you, I was annoyed, like a lot of Seahawks fans, that the games were not played at the same time because I thought it was a huge disadvantage for the Seahawks for the Lions to potentially be disincentivized from playing hard. Now, it helps if the Lions won, but I also arrived, even before the game started, I think I arrived at a certain kind of like, I was at peace with it because I thought, you know what's really dangerous is a team with nothing to lose. i mean we almost hit that against the rams because the rams had nothing to lose which means why wouldn't you go for it fourth and one from your own 30 like what are you going to knock it in the postseason like a team that has four downs every time yeah is dangerous a team that runs a hook and ladder when it's second and 17 can i just say i i think the hook and ladder is criminally underused in the nfl okay i literally can't remember the last time i saw it the last time i saw one it was the national championship game of college or at least it was i think the orange ball it wasn't the national championship game but it was i believe it was boise state against oklahoma this was a game that had boise state run in one final i think series in order to win the game they ran a hook and ladder they ran i believe a statue of liberty play and then when a guy scored the winning touchdown he proposed to one of the cheerleaders who he is now still i believe married to you want to talk about a final series that's a final series anyway i think the hook and ladder should just be used so much more than it is it doesn't seem like it's that difficult of a play to execute you throw the ball to a dude he catches it but the plan is for another dude from his team to be running near him and then he flips the ball out to him like it doesn't seem Like it's that hard to accomplish considering What the upside is I mean

Yeah I mean I guess The reason maybe it was successful is Because it's so rarely used if it's used more The defense is probably looking for it right Yes it is putting the ball in motion In a kind of dangerous potentially Dangerous way you know you're putting it You're having somebody toss the ball who Is not a ball tosser that's one of the Football terms that A lot of our TBTL listeners might Not have a big Johnson shirt recently But anyway, no, the universes of TBTL and no point are colliding.

Also, I didn't I will admit that I didn't watch the game like really closely on Sunday in a way that I feel Packers. Well, either one, even the Seahawks game, like I was there at the Eagles for both of them specifically to watch those games. But we were just back from vacation the night before we were catching up with our friends for the first time in a couple of weeks. There's a lot of chatter. So like I wasn't hanging on every play. I was like watching kind of from, you know, I was watching the game. But anyway, in other words, I can't provide the kind of expert analysis that you're usually getting from me. But I was rewatching some parts of it last night. I found another site that I sent you a text that will actually store and replay NFL games. That was a fun little thing I stumbled on. So I was kind of rewatching some parts of it last night. And I forgot or I didn't realize upon first watching how many times the Seahawks went into a wildcat formation. I think I counted. Did I count three different times where you had Gino out in a receiver position? Yeah.

Yeah, I think. And Gino got a false start on one of those. He lost his balance.

Yeah.

Because it's that, by the way, points out just how how hyper specialized these football positions are. Because like Gino, Gino Smith is a stud athlete. like geno smith if you knew him he would be the most athletic person you knew and yet when he does something that he doesn't do every day which is stand there out kind of like a receiver it messes with him because and receivers don't generally get false starts because they do that all the time their bodies are just like their bodies and brains are so attuned to the specifics of what their job on the field is it's kind of interesting but um uh uh yeah like just to kind of circle back quickly to, I guess, the overall conversation about the Seahawks and what the expectations were. This blew my expectations out of the water. I want to say that I was so not a fan of the idea of starting Geno Smith. Even though he seemed sort of competent when he was filling in for Russell last year, he always seemed to make some sort of critical turnover at the wrong moment. And so going into this season, And I don't know anything about Drew Locke, except I think he was taken in the first round, maybe, maybe the second round.

I think you're right. That sounds right.

Somehow the fact that I had less data on Drew Locke just made him more appealing to me as an idea because it's like, well, I don't know what this guy's deal is. Therefore, it could be good. What I knew about Geno Smith was him like fumbling and during the two minute drive when we really needed him to not do that. So I have been I've been really stoked. I do think that he's sort of come back down to earth a little bit. I mean, that pick he threw at the first play of the game, then he threw another pick later. I don't care if Geno Smith throws picks. Don't throw them to Jalen Ramsey, because I hate Jalen Ramsey. You know who else I kind of hate now, honestly? Bobby Wagner. I knew you were going to say that, yeah. What a heel. Like, he was not, like, look, I know he's got his issues with feeling disrespected by John Schneider and Pete Carroll, and maybe those are valid, but, like, that first game in L.A., he was just nasty, even to the other Seahawks. Like, he was sneering at people. it wasn't like hey these are my brothers on the field i got my problems with the front office but like i know it's i don't have a problem with him wanting to win the game i just thought he actually was he just seemed really distasteful out there and then this game same thing he's grabbing dudes by the face mask and like yelling at him and chirping and just like he just really he'll turned it on us i feel i mean i feel like he's freaking and he needs to call i i i know what

you mean like during the game i had that same feeling but then i so and also i loved it when when quandre digs got that interception i think it was the interception that basically won the game for the seahawks well stop them from winning the game we still had to we still had to move the ball oh that's right 40 or 50 yards oh that's right you know what i was thinking i it was a bomb yes you know what i mean like they still had to turn yeah okay yeah that we still had to move the ball but anyway the the the interception that essentially it didn't seal the game for us but It certainly turned it majorly in our direction for us to then win it and then go to the playoffs with the Lions loss. Anyway, when Diggs intercepted that, I saw him him pointing to the L.A. sideline and I didn't quite know what was going on. But apparently he was kind of rubbing that in Wagner's face, which I kind of love. But I also heard that like those guys kind of exchanged jerseys afterwards. There was a lot of love. Like when he came out onto the field, he gave a bunch of Seahawks players a hug, including Pete Carroll. So it might just be kind of like on the field competition. I don't think he's like turned as a person talking shit it seemed like he was they were actually you know competing and again I don't like seeing him and on the field and some of his stomping around and some of his stuff but I think it was mostly relegated to gameplay for whatever I see because I was watching a game in such a compromised position ie illegally streaming it in a construction site I wasn't watching the pre and post game I heard on the radio them say something about bobby staying on the field a long time afterwards so i i should i should you know recognize that as well like i do think that he was you know i do think he like loves his former teammates and is not a bad human but there were just moments i guess that's how he got himself hyped you know he just needed to there were just times on the field where i felt like he well not that we want to use russell wilson as the example of everything but it didn't feel like that when russell wilson was playing against us in the first game like even though he's getting the shit boot out of him and stuff i mean and that's just a personality difference whatever but um but i was a little surprised by that but i was also then kind of yeah we got lucky speaking of that quandary digs play there was two i often lament what i feel like are bad calls for the seahawks against the seahawks uh we got pretty lucky on two different plays in that game that were pretty pivotal the first was dk metcalf poking his finger in the eye of Jalen Ramsey after that call where Jalen Ramsey got called for a sideline late hit on Geno. Do you remember that play? I remember the play.

This finger in the eye was totally lost on me.

So, you know, Geno Smith goes on this scramble. This is at the end of regulation. And he's like at the, I want to say, the like 45 or something of LA. And he steps out of bounds. And Jalen Ramsey is kind of hand fighting with DK Metcalf, as is a... I assume that on game day, if you were to go into DK Metcalf's hotel room, he's hand fighting with Jalen Ramsey. They just hand fight into the hallway, then into the elevator, then onto the bus, and then to the stadium.

I think DK is always really rough with his defenders. I think that, and he gets away, you know, sometimes he's called, but I think he gets away with a lot of shit too, because I think he's always pushing and grabbing.

I think he particularly hates Jalen Ramsey, because Jalen Ramsey is a shit talker, and is, you know, is help. I think Jalen Ramsey is also very physical, and those, I think that's real, you know, kind of the combustion becomes an explosion. But I think you're right. I mean, DK is always out there chirping. So Jalen Ramsey is basically standing on the sideline. I don't think he would have got the penalty, but he drops his shoulder into Geno. So if he just put his hands out, there's no penalty. He's just standing. He's on the sideline. Geno's taking two steps out of bounds along the sideline. If Jalen Ramsey puts his hands up and just kind of pushes Geno or stops him, no penalty. Jalen Ramsey drops his right shoulder and levels it into Gino, which, you know, if you're a Rams fan, you think that's a bullshit call. I think that there's definitely enough there for it. So that call was lucky for us, I guess you could say. And then DK starts poking. He's trying to be like, that's going to be against you, Jalen Ramsey. But what he does, because he's so amped, is he pushes his finger through Jalen Ramsey's face mask and is basically poking his gloved hand into Jalen Ramsey's eye. Oh, I didn't see that detail. And pushing the helmet, and everyone on the Seahawks' island is screaming at him to stop because what he's about to do is invalidate, because a flag gets thrown, and we're like, we just got 15 more yards. This is now going to make this field goal very makeable. Little did we know, Jason Meyer would hit the pole. But at the time, it was like, we're about to win the game, and DK is about to basically invalidate the 15 yards we're getting off of this Jalen Ramsey error. So they didn't call that against us, which was lucky. They didn't call Quandre Diggs for taunting after the interception because you're, I guess, officially not allowed to point at the other team after you do something. And if they were being real sticklers, they could have done that. And then, of course, the biggie, the Michael Dixon running into the punter.

Yeah, even I was like, oh, okay. He will take it, in the words of my friend Luke Werbeck.

I mean, what I would say, though, listen, I mean, except here's what, and I know I'm going to sound like a complete Seahawk apologist here, But what I would say is there's a reason why there are two different levels of that penalty. One is roughing the kicker and one is running into the kicker. Because there is a thing that is like you can't run into a guy when he's got one foot on the turf and one leg in the stars. Like it's a dangerous position. And so they really want to protect that guy. And that's why it's five yards and not 15 yards. Another thing, I was very mad at Scott Van Pelt, who, again, I love Scott Van Pelt. It hurt me. it hurt me the way it must hurt tbtl listeners when i say things they don't like because they love me andrew that's the point of that analogy scott vanpell along with not getting to the seahawks until after they had covered um you know field hockey or something was he's talking to stanford steve kind of his sort of sidekick guy who just kind of sits around and like utters like four words per show which is kind of genius actually schlubby guy yeah kind of yeah and just like i don't really know what his official job is he's not he doesn't read anything he's just there and then occasionally he'll be like yeah that's ridiculous or whatever but like scott goes that doesn't look like roughing to me does it look like roughing to you steve and steve's like doesn't look like roughing to me and i'm like Like, you guys, do your research. No one called it roughing. No one thinks it's roughing. It's definitely not roughing. It might not even be running into, but it's closer to running into the kicker than it is to roughing. And I think it was debatable because, you know, if you are pushed into the kicker, they won't call it running into the kicker. It was not clear that this guy was, like, shoved into him. It was on the line. Again, if I'm a Rams fan, I think it's the most bullshit call of all time. I don't think it was without any possible universe

in which it was a decent call but it definitely was one where they showed the replay and i like i i think in that moment i was a little confused about whether or not they'd actually thrown a flag on that or not and this vague recollection of me maybe being angry that they didn't throw a flag on it and then i realized oh they did throw a flag and then they showed the replay and i was like oh oh nice like i just i felt like i got away with something yeah it's could have

it's one of those ones that could just as easily have not been called um but again there is a penalty called running into the kicker well what what what would constitute that you make contact with the kicker when they're in the act of kicking the football and if you weren't like directly shoved into them i don't know again that's my perspective as a seahawks fan that was it was very fortunate that they called that on our behalf because you know that saved that drive and then And we were able to go down the field and ultimately, I think, get the field goal that tied it, I think, is what came out of that play. We got down. We went on fourth. We went on, like, fourth and one, which was a ballsy play. We got it. Got that Ken Walker. One thing I don't want the Seahawks to do when we play San Francisco, if we even can manage to get the ball across the 50, if we get down to, like, first and goal or whatever, can we get rid of the shotgun snap? how is that how we're doing this i was texting with our friend pesca and this was when the seahawks got down to the like i don't know two yard line and we're looking like they might score a touchdown this is after we got the fourth down converted and we might score a touchdown and just have the lead ultimately we had to kick a field goal and just take the tie at that point but we had like a third and goal or something where instead of gino being up under the center with the running back basically right behind him gino is five steps back in the shotgun position how could the shotgun position ever be a good starting point for handing it off to the running back why would you need why would you want the running back to need to run five extra yards before getting to the line of scrimmage and then try to get the most contested two yards in history yeah i don't know

enough about that aspect of the game to answer that but i often wonder the same thing because It seems like, well, don't you I mean, when it's such short yardage like that, like take advantage of that yardage. But it must be something about like just protecting, you know, you put a line up front and you give them a little space in the back so that you can protect them and give them maybe a little bit of a little bit more time to find a seam, maybe find, you know, get be patient and look for for an opportunity. I assume I don't know. But yeah, sometimes you see those things and you're like, what are you thinking? For me, I get all this terminology very confused, but it's like, I don't know if it's a bootleg, a naked bootleg, a screen pass. I don't know what it is, but I see other teams kind of chuck it to the side where you have a receiver who is in varying degrees of protection, and somehow they are successful. I mean, I'm sure I have, but I rarely see the Seahawks do that in a way that is successful, yet they keep on going to it, and I just don't understand it. like it'll be like an important third down and what are we going to do we're going to throw it laterally to a person who's hanging out there unprotected who's going to get smashed and it's

like that's a bubble screen okay is the name for that play and i'm with you it never seemed sometimes they throw it to dk and i'm like okay i guess the theory there is dk is a beast yeah and if you get dk holding the ball and he's got a cornerback trying to take breaking him down dk is gonna like just flick that guy off like a gnat the problem is the other teams seem to always know we're about to throw the bubble screen and it's like dk is like gulliver against the lilliputians there's like 40 of them they're shooting ropes over down to the beach it's it's not it doesn't work and then although although they'll throw it to like occasionally to tyler but that's not really how they use him now let me just going back to the um the shotgun position you know who had great success with that exact kind of thing on the one yard line was the Detroit excuse me yeah was the Detroit Lions going up against the Green Bay Packers and you know who scored two of those touchdowns from the shotgun position was one Jamal Williams now yesterday on real TBTL I said to you I want to play this Jamal Williams presser you I would imagine have now seen this I actually

haven't seen it but you were wondering if it had gone viral or not and when I turned on my sports radio station just like the local 710 for the afternoon show they played it within the first hour of the show so I do think it was getting

attention. I consider myself the person who made it go viral by talking about it on TV

because in the morning i wasn't seeing it anywhere and then by afternoon it was everywhere defector like it's become a whole thing but in case people missed it uh this is the running back for the lions a former uh green bay packer jamal williams who i think had 17 touchdowns this year which is now the most ever for the lions although asterisk because they got to play one more game like i just want to say barry sanders is still the goat of all running backs practically in my mind and that's who he got the record from, but this was a really kind of wild thing because it's Jared Goff, the quarterback for the Lions, and he's standing there next to Jamal Williams, and Jamal Williams is very emotional talking about his great-grandfather passing. This is how this sounded. Take a listen.

Jamal, you set the franchise record. You broke Barry Sanders' record. What does that mean to you? My great-grandfather died on me. I'll just dedicate this to him. i'm just proud i'm just grateful to do this for him my grandfather he was 92 but i'm just grateful for him to be in my life and i'm grateful to be able to play football and do this for him so there's a lot of memories a lot of emotion happening right now but i'm just grateful

i'm grateful to be able to play this game for my great great grandfather and i'm glad that He's looking down on me. I know I'm making him proud.

Now, I'm watching this in real time, Andrew, and I'm thinking, like, this is a genuinely sweet moment. Like, this guy, Jamal Williams, seems like a good dude, and he had a great game and proved the doubters wrong. And I'm just thinking, like, well, you know, there's a lot of bullshit in sports and a lot of sort of, I don't know, just things that are supposed to be emotionally resonant that aren't for me. This was really kind of like, hey, man, this is a lovely tribute to his great-grandfather after a great game.

and then he pauses and really pivots this ball's for him yeah this is for him another thing stop playing us man we made we the detroit lions we the detroit lions stop playing with us i don't even watch tv but i heard everybody already kicked their kick the packers over us stop playing with us that's all i gotta say man don't let these tears fool you it's all dog around this mug

it's all dog around this mug how do you think he spells it d-a-w-g depends on what the university of georgia's legal department has to say about it that now i know it's now it's been it's been it's been played a lot and dissected everything imagine just watching that in real time with no expectations andrew as i was sitting on my couch and it's not even provoked like her

follow-up question is oh so this is for your grandfather yes and another thing it was a wild

ride and what it's led me now to and we don't really have the time to explore it and i don't have the tape uh lined up but like there's so much great jamal williams like what would you call it sort of content out there you mean he's really into pokemon like deeply into pokemon to the point where so his intro you know how they do the like you know whatever your name is and like the college went to or the high school or whatever you want to say at the beginning that intro his for this game he was wearing like a pokemon headband and he was declaring himself the mayor

of like a pokemon town i saw somebody said something about the mayor of pokemon or maybe they said that on the radio in passing and i did not understand what they were talking about

and then he like that's awesome yeah right he like uh let's see if i can find this now i am going to try to find this on the fly uh a reporter was asking him about here we go uh this is jamal Williams does not want you to mispronounce Pokemon, by the way. So this is him. After this game, this is the game that we've been talking about, Packers-Lions. He's got his, like, I think maybe Pokemon-related headband back on. And this reporter's asking him about it sitting in front of his locker.

I don't watch TV. You don't watch TV? You didn't hear about it?

I'm trying not to cuss.

I don't care.

I just want to play football and go home. You're holding me right now. I just want to go home and play Pokemon.

Go home and play Pokemon? Yeah.

Pokemon. Don't do that. You can't disrespect Pokemon like that. Pokemon?

You sound like old. I got my nephew some Pokemon cards. They're kind of a big deal.

Yeah. I don't know what cards you got on me. They must have sucked because you calling them Pokemon. But it's fine. Never mind. I'm off topic. Come on. My bad. I'm sorry. I love it.

I love it. Another part where he's explaining to somebody, like, what it was. He's translating, basically, what he was saying during his intro of, like, what the thing meant. And, like, you know, we've talked a lot on TBTL about the kind of, like, nerd, I guess you could say, like, nerd appropriation. Like, how it's popular. Like, I'm just such a nerd. he is deep in this world and he's like if you don't speak nerd this is what i'm talking about he's like well i feel like it's amazing to see somebody who as who is as good at two things that usually and i don't want to generalize here but that are not usually inhabited in the same exact physical body his clear deep nerdiness and his clear exceptional ability to play running back of the NFL it's it's a combo you don't get all the time yeah and when he says well I think you're

the wrong person to ask no offense but when he says I want to go home and play Pokemon is he talking about the actual card game or is he talking about a video game version of it I assume he's not talking about Pokemon Go like because I'm curious because obviously these players NBA and NFL players often are talking about how they love to play their video games right but those usually sports-based in their video games or maybe even some of the i don't know war-based games or whatever but the fact that he's talking about pokemon which is like such a such an endearingly soft little game right well he asked the reporter what kind of cards i don't know what

kind of cards you have yeah so uh maybe he's got some some legit cards i know there are like i've also you know like uh i think it was um who's that there was that that like linebacker for the

seahawks oh yeah his car got jacked he lost all those really it was his like magic the gathering card i feel like he was a tight end let me look this up maybe that's wrong uh no he was a defensive

oh he was okay and yeah um but uh as soon as you say his name i'm gonna i'll be mad at myself that i can't remember but yeah i do know that some of these players do really get into like magic cards and pokemon and stuff but um anyway i i'm i'm enjoying getting to know the the quirks of one jamal williams that's also been another i feel like it started with a c yeah it's cassius marsh

and it was magic the gathering yeah cash marsh um but uh anyway well listen uh i don't mean to

be hasty here but i do believe we are going to need to wrap this up uh predictions for saturday

andrew seahawks are gonna win i don't know be at the eagles i don't know i actually need to make I need to think hard about this it's an afternoon game it's a Saturday game I love this season I have gotten together with friends almost every single week to watch the game which is not normal in the past I would have my two games my Seahawks and my Browns and I'd sequester myself and I'd watch them and I'd really hang on every single play this season I took it much more casually having mimosas and drinks and what but I'm kind of I mean obviously the deck is stacked against the seahawks yet i also i'm just kind of like i'm going into this game saying the seahawks are going to do something weird and wacky and win and maybe it won't happen but i'm i'm going in with a positive attitude because it's more fun this way and yeah football's a weird goddamn sport and who knows like any anything can happen so i'm saying seahawks win by um four by four runs how about that seahawks win by four runs but my big question is whether or not like because i'm kind of excited about this do i go back to is sequestered andrew watching or do i watch no because that could mess up the the the well there you go yeah that's a good point i know my thought

was i think eagles andrew is happy andrew yeah it's true because i think less pacing there's some less pacing less upset maybe and also just enough distance like a healthy amount of distance because Vives will want to go watch it with the fun people. It'll be you and Bingo pacing and watching every bounce of the ball. And if the game goes kind of sideways, which it has the potential to. Although, again, the thing I'll say about the Seahawks, this is why I'm very intrigued by this 10-point spread. Watch Monday. We could talk about this. But the Seahawks tend to keep things pretty close. We lost a lot of one-score games this year. We won a lot of one-score games. We don't usually get blown out. There's going to be the exception. But I was going to say it's I think if this game has a chance to be kind of gutting or kind of a blowout at all, it's better to do that with other people where you can like have a few mimosas and kind of like have it not be the like laser focus of your attention. Because if it is and it goes not great, that just rests heavier with you, I think. I mean, not you, but a person now here. But let me just say this, Andrew, I'm waking up Saturday morning in Las Vegas, Nevada. right now my flight home is 10 30 a.m putting me back in portland at 12 55 p.m and my plan with that was so that i could then you know go watch the game somewhere but i don't know man i guess we'll just see how i mean i'm working i'm not i'm working it's not a social trip i'm not i don't have any plans to go nuts and i'm not even hanging out with anyone there. So it's like, do I watch it by myself in a sports bar or rather in a sports book in Vegas? It's weird to be in Las Vegas when your team is playing a playoff game and leave Las Vegas to go back to Portland to watch your team play a playoff game. But that's my current plan.

I'm sorry. I need to go back to something stupid that I said at the very, very, very, very beginning of this of the show, because I had said something like, well, the Seahawks got off to a good start. And you said, no, they didn't. But I'm just thinking about the Eagles and my experience of the Eagles and my friends all dunking on me, especially Katie, because she said I was I'm the new Andy Hurst. No, of course, I don't like that. The Seahawks went one and oh by beating Denver, because I remember that's where I was like, oh, it's going to be it's like going to be a traditional comeback in the in the fourth quarter for Russell Wilson here in Seattle. And was that Monday night or Sunday night football? Like it was good. It was all set up to be an embarrassment for us. But actually it was we won the first we won the first game very memorably, as I say it. And then, yeah, I think we went like down one and two and then two and two and then maybe two and three. But I don't think we ever got off to like a terrible start. We well, the record was pretty close.

I don't think we have two and three. I don't think of as like a particularly great start. No, but we came back.

But then we came back.

You're using Brown's rules.

Yeah. I mean, it's not it wasn't an awesome start. But given the fact that we then came back and we're three and three, I believe, by week six, like, you know, given given the expectations of this team, basically starting the first quarter of the season, the first third of the season, a 500 team is it's not it wasn't the worst.

Well, again, I think that's probably a sense of perspective. And I'm not saying you're wrong, by the way, but I'm just saying in my mind, when you're too like because we got to six and three, which is pretty phenomenal. Two and three to me doesn't feel like a hot start. Now, I guess if you throw in the asterisk of we had no expectations, so not being 0-5, yes, it wasn't 0-5, but I didn't feel at 2-3, the Denver game we won because Russell Wilson imploded, so that felt to me like a lucky thing, and then I think we went out and lost the next two games, maybe we got to, I don't think we ever got to 2-2, maybe we did, I'm not sure, I didn't feel at the beginning of the season like we were off to a hot start.

it wasn't a hot start but given what it was the people were talking like we weren't going to win any games and i think what colored it was we and i'm looking at the record and i'm looking a little bit back at the schedule we did lose to the falcons and we like we lost to the 49ers well the 49ers um ended up being very good this season so whatever then we lost to the falcons which we felt like nobody should have lost to the falcons and that was also our defense was just getting manhandled for a couple of games by the running game which just felt which just felt awful but then we come back and we beat the lions and we're three and three and then we lost to the saints again so like it was a mixed bag but it wasn't we also shouldn't have lost to the saints that was

the yeah the bummer was we lost to the lions and saint or excuse me we lost to the the falcons and saints that are both just object objectively bad teams so that was what and we beat the lions who at that time looked like an objectively bad team like the lions started out like oh and three or oh and four so we had like and denver is bad we had no good wins at the beginning of the season in my opinion, and two bad losses was just kind of my calculation. But, you know, I think you raise a good point, which is compared to what the expectations were, even two and three or three and three is actually better than anybody like me was predicting. So there you go. Yeah, and we did get swept

by that entire division, which I'll never get to, the NFC South. They were the worst division, and we didn't take one game from them. I do not understand

that. All right, my prediction is because I'm also a fan, here's my prediction this is such a cop-out my prediction is the seahawks cover okay okay so the seahawks either win or lose by less than 10 points that's i know that that's such a cop-out and i'm gonna own it i say that's probably what i'm gonna be that's what i'm gonna be laying in luckily i have a bet with draft kings that was seahawks win super bowl on a botched running into the kicker call so i'm sitting pretty right now anyway all right thanks everyone for uh tolerating this um and maybe we'll get to do another one soon if the seahawks somehow win i can promise you this as long as the seahawks are still in the playoffs we are doing no points

all right good i like it probably two days are best but yeah definitely or not all right thanks

everyone as we like to wrap these things up by saying when we're doing the no point there's absolutely no tangent too long or detail too wrong No matter what you are I will always be with you Doesn't matter what you do Girl, I'll go with you