(00:00) 2024 college season preview
(14:23) Ravens at Chiefs preview
(30:00) Patrick Mahomes on Ravens defense
(34:34) Lamar Jackson on Patrick Mahomes
(41:27) Justin Tucker on preparing for kickoff game vs Chiefs
PFT Live with Mike Florio
Ravens at Chiefs Kickoff preview + Patrick Mahomes career vs Ravens (Hour 1)
The five-dollar meal deal at McDonald's means you get to pick between them a double or a chicken. Mmm. Then get a small fry, a small drink, and a four-piece McNuggets. That's a lot of McDonald's for not a lot of money. Get the five-dollar meal deal today. Prices and participation may vary for a limited time only. Hey Applebee's, congrats on becoming the official grilling bar sponsor of the NFL. How does it feel? I'm glad we'll be able to bring some extra heat. Any plans to celebrate? Yeah, we got to serve up America's favorite boneless wings for just 50 cents each to kick off the season. Limited time, price participation in this election may vary, tax number two, it excluded. This episode is brought to you by Progressive. Most of you aren't just listening right now, you're multitasking, but what if you could also be saving money by switching to Progressive? Drivers you save by switching save nearly $750 on average, and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. So multitask right now. Get your quote now at Progressive.com. Progressive cash-worthy insurance company and affiliates' national average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Social savings will vary, discounts not available in all states and situations. We're going to be talking about the time it is, we're going to have breakfast, we're going to go to the bus in around 3, 2, 1, come on. [Music] [Music] [Music] Supremely talented professional athletes struggling. I don't know that the gloves would really help in that situation. Why do you take the gloves off and do it? I was impressed that they tried to do it with gloves on, but a couple of those guys, you're probably going to have an easier time if you get rid of those things that stick to everything. As a cheese fan, you should be proud, your team, they're not full of guys who are at parties doing different things, flipping cups over, they were locked in professional athletes, taking care of their body. They're not pros of this stuff, because like you said, common sense, take off the gloves, get ready to go. But those guys are rushing to practice, they're focused on one thing, but at the same time, they know how to be competitive. Cheese fans, they're ready for open a week. That's good. Well, I mean, that is glass half full pun intended. It is a Tuesdays with McCordy edition of PFT Live. You saw Devon last weekend. Devon, let me tell you something. I am used to an audience that does not hesitate to complain. PFT Live, NBC, Peacock, Comcast, anything, anything is directed at me. I had somebody persistently emailing me about one of the fast and furious movies kept freezing up when he was trying to watch it on Peacock. It's like, why are you telling me? So the fact that I feel dozens, if not hundreds of complaints every single week about all of our content, about all of NBC's content, about all of Peacock's content, about all of the Comcast family of networks, and there was not a single complaint, not one, about Devon McCordy co-hosting PFT Live. If anything, there was just praise. I have the emails, all praise, no complaints. So you set a high bar last week, and the only way to go is down. Hey, you just lined everyone up to jump on a computer or phone and email you right now and said, oh, well, I thought about how bad he was. I just didn't email you. I will email you this week to let you know that we hate this dude. Hey, they don't need any encouragement. They do it. It just happens organically. And I think that, and I've tried to explain this to my wife before. Back when we used to have comments on the website, she'd say, do you see what these people say about you? And it's like, look, it's the passion that gets them in the door that can kind of go all crazy. But if you don't have the passion that brings you there, they're not going to be there. So it's that love of football and the love of arguing and the emotion that gets stirred up. One part of what we do is we try to deliberately stir it up. Yeah, it's going to get splashed all over the place. But so far, so far, you are unscathed. And it's not because they're not watching. It's not because they're not paying attention. So enjoy this period because one thing I've noticed about you and others will notice this in time. You say things. You just say them in kind of a low-key way that doesn't hit anyone over the head with a club. And they're going to start noticing stuff you say. And once it sinks in, maybe it is a delayed reaction. Maybe it is going to take a week or two before people are like, he's not as nice as we think. He's insulting our team. He's just doing it. He's doing it in a way that like, we didn't notice it right away. We had to hear him say it a couple of times before he got us riled up. As I like to tell all my friends and tell my wife, I'm the nicest guy I know. And I think that's the best way you can be. Maybe it's not true to some people. Maybe it is true. But to me, I'm the nicest guy I know. So if you're watching, do not worry. I never insult a team. Every team's great. Don't be. Don't listen to Florio. I think that I'm saying things in a certain way. Just believe it. I'm just this happy-go-lucky guy. Every team's going to be great. Every team will have a chance to win a Super Bowl. Let's put that in the air. Believe that or not, as you keep watching, we'll break it down all why. I'm just telling you the good things. You missed one key fact. It's not every team will have a chance to win the Super Bowl. Every team will win the Super Bowl. Every team will go undefeated. That's the attitude. Frankly, if you don't have that attitude, you're a hater. It's like, folks, we've seen, and hell, I've personally studied and lived through more than 50 NFL seasons now. Like, once the game's starting, all those months of hope. And I've been there. I've had that off season of, "Hey, if this happens and that happens and that happens, this is the year." And then they start playing the games and it's like, "What the hell?" I went through it on Saturday with West Virginia. I allowed myself to believe that, "Hey, oh, we got a chance to beat Penn State." And I'm thinking, "Why do they think we got a chance to beat Penn State? What about this team makes anyone think they're going to beat Penn State? Oh, we got a chance to beat Penn State." And they start playing the game and it's like, we don't have a chance to beat Penn State. But it was fun. It was fun while it lasted. Why do you think I have my Pat's gear on today? Because last week, I was asked to pick the last team in the AFCE's. People were like, "How could you dare pick the Patriots?" And I'm like, "Wait, we don't all think they're going to finish last in the AFCE's? It's okay. I'm still a fan, but they're going to finish last." And I checked the score a couple of times with your West Virginia Penn State game. Yeah, it got ugly in a hurry. Unlike West Virginia, Rutgers is undefeated going into week two. It's all good. You know, maybe you guys will catch up to us. But it feels good to now know that Rutgers is a better football team than West Virginia. And you don't have to bring up that I lost to them. We talked about that last week, but Rutgers is now better than West Virginia. It's a good feeling in college football when that happens. And West Virginia lost to Penn State at Penn State last year, '38 to '15. And that game felt close, closer than the score indicated. The score, this time when I was 34 to 12, and it felt like it was 130 to 12. It was just one of those days, and I'm sure you've been there on both sides of it, more on the good side than the bad side in the NFL. But just one of those days where it's like one team belongs and one team doesn't. And this could go really, really, really badly. And it didn't go as badly as it could have. And that's the thing, and I heard Nick Saban lamenting this because they expect him to pick games now on ESPN. And he's like, "I don't know what the hell any of these teams are going to be." Nobody knows what these teams are going to be. So it's like, "Oh, well, West Virginia finished strong last year, and they won a ball game, and it's a new year." And especially in college, there's no preseason, there's no anything. There's no chance to even begin to assess whether or not they can do the most basic thing, like execute a shotgun snap without the ball hitting the guy who's going in motion, which happened like twice in the first quarter. Like, there's none of that. And I admire the teams, of course they do it for the money, but I admire the teams that jump right in and play a great team right out of the gates instead of lining up a couple of patsies to simulate the preseason and get a couple of wins. And it's great as a fan when we turn on, because it's opening weekend to college football. It's going to be the same thing to NFL. People love the NFL because when we turn on the game, I don't care what the schedule says, you just said it. We don't know what to expect. Last year, we went to Kansas City in Detroit. The obvious pick was like Kansas City. They're coming off, Super Bowl title. They're playing Detroit. We know Detroit's hot and they finish the season strong, but this is the Chiefs. And we went and we watched and Detroit won college football when we see some of the games going in. We're like, I'm not watching that game. It's going to be brutal. So I agree with you to watch LSU go out there and they're playing a tough game and to watch Florida State come off, playing in Ireland, and then now coming back and playing Boston College, you're like, this is good football. Like college give us great games to open a weekend. Then get back to whatever you want to do in week two or three as you prepare for end conference. But I love the games where it was just like, this is going to be a really good game. Just sit down and watch, but you just couldn't say that across the board. LSU and USC, that's who it was. And it was like watching that game. You felt like you were watching the game. A bunch of guys who are going to have a chance of playing NFL someday not watching one team with a bunch of NFL players and another team where the guys will go professional and something other than the sport they play. No one wants to see that open a weekend. I was down in my barn on Friday night and I pulled up the college games that were on and had them in like a four box and they all sucked. It's like, and that's what it's going to be because it's, you know, decent to good team versus team that's showing up for a paycheck. And rarely if ever, that's why the Appalachian state went over Michigan from 17 years ago still resonates because rarely if ever does that team that was supposed to just show up and lay down, wake up and kick ass and win the game. So a lot of that happens the opening weekend of college football, but it gets good fast. There's some good games coming up this weekend, good games every weekend. The problem is I travel most weeks. It's a reminder this weekend of how much fun college football is to watch and I'm going to slip into the sooner than later every Saturday, I'm going to be, you know, struggling to watch on my phone while the plane's up in the air and then we're dating it. I lost track of this game, lost track of that game and you just get frustrated and give up on it. All right, don't get frustrated and give up on us. We're getting to, we're getting to football now. Oh, you mentioned the USC game too, Devin. I want to, I want to bring up one point because it ties back to the gloves that we saw earlier. Because there were some haters on social media. What a shock about that great catch in the USC game. That great, like, it wasn't one hand to catch per se. He got a hand on it and then dragged it down and got it with both hands, but it was incredible. It was amazing. And people are like, oh, it was all because of the gloves. Look, I mean, yeah, everybody wears the gloves now and don't we want that if it helps. Guys make catches, but you still have to have incredible physical skills. You have to be able to contort your body at full speed when you have two guys bearing down on you. Your whole body can be made of the glove material and you ain't going to catch the damn thing unless you can do what that guy did to throw a hand up in the air and snag it and pull it down in. And I'm sure plenty of guys could have still caught that ball without the gloves, but it's not like it's cheating. Everybody has access to them. Everybody uses them. They're part of the standard equipment and football. So I used to joke that, oh, you see a great catch. It's the gloves, but it's just it's part of the uniform now. It's it's like a baseball player where I use it a bat. I don't care that that is an amazing physical display. Gloves are no gloves. And people have to remember like this guy is going to get he's going to hit the ground. Number eight is going to also hit him in air. Like this is not just like on air running in my backyard. Like when I play catch with my son and he always puts one hand up and all bounces off his hand. I'm like, stop putting one hand up. You don't have that good. You can't catch the ball like that. This guy, this is full speed. He's going to get hit and his gloves are the same as like you said as everyone else's gloves. And I would tell anybody who says that's because of the gloves to go out there. Buy a pair of gloves, go in your backyard, not have a quarterback throw a good hard ball at you, but to actually go out there and let someone lob a ball up and see how many times you can dive fall on the ground, snag a pass in the air. Like I would love for people to just go out there, make that a challenge to see how many times it takes you to go do that and actually catch the ball, not in the live game. No one's going to hit you, but just do that. Twenty times with those gloves and I guarantee you won't catch one pass like that one hand because for one, these guys have abnormal hand size to be able to do that in the first place. But the concentration, the key to you to catch the ball through the ridiculous, but again, like you said, you have to expect people are going to think what you see on TV is easier. A lot of people watch people go out there and they do, they swim with the great right sharks and all those shark weekend stuff and they're like, oh yeah, that's one thing. Get in the ocean and get with the shark and tell me what you think after you get out there. It's a lot different. Yeah, look, you hit the ground and you get separated shoulder, break a collarbone. I mean, you're coming down hard on that artificial turf. Or wait, they're playing in Las Vegas, so it's grass, but still, you're coming down hard. Yes, it's still, the point still stands. You're thrusting your body up into the air and you know that when it comes down, it's going to come down hard, especially if one or both of the guys that were chasing him landed on him. Okay, that's it for college football. We're going to pivot now, the National Football League, because if you haven't heard, it starts in two nights in Kansas City and will be there for Ravens and Chiefs, AFC Championship rematch. You kidding me? And you mentioned that Lions Chiefs game last year. I remember before that game when Lions came out, I thought. Mm hmm. Lions seemed a little fired up. But you know what, this time around, the Chiefs, because it happened to them last year, I have a feeling they're going to be the ones that are ready to go, but we'll be there in the stadium to just kind of get that vibe before the game starts. You have the media obligations, Devin. Here's Andy Reed, head coach of the Chiefs, and both him and Patrick Mahomes on this upcoming contest to start the season against the Ravens. This is a team that's a physical football team, so you got to add that element into it. And they're good. They've played together. So they're good. They're going to test your ability to execute on both sides of the ball and special teams. So it's important that we take care of business here these few days that we have to prepare. You've got to do that the right way, but that would be it, along with part of execution is hanging on the football. Yeah, I mean, it's just a great opportunity for the guys. I mean, to see what it's like to be on the biggest stage, I mean, obviously, you want to play in the Super Bowl at the end of the year. But this is a big stage as well. And so to be able to get that experience to play a great football team, I'm excited for these guys to get out there and the guys that haven't been here. See what it's like to be on that type of stage. Andy, were you talking about hanging on to the football dotted line reference back to what happened last year? Oh, and with the gloves and all, Caderias, Tony had all those drops, which contributed to the Chiefs not winning on the night they raised a banner. Usually the home team does. They had to be mortified by that. And it's, look, we still got a couple of days before we pick the outcome of this one, but the Chiefs, this is the worst time to get the Chiefs week one, because they got their butts kicked last year, week one, and they remember how that felt. And they're going to have a little extra something because they don't want to feel that way again to start the season. But I also think on the reverse side of that is the Chiefs understand that this game is not the season. They understand, hey, last year we came out open a night. We didn't play the way we wanted to, but we also understand this is a process. We have to continue to get better and they got better throughout the season, even though all of us watching didn't enjoy what it looked like didn't think that it would end the way it ended. They knew our goal Patrick Mahomes said it. We all want to be playing in the Super Bowl. This is going into opening day and he's talking about the goal is to ultimately play in the Super Bowl. So as much as they want to win this game, I know from coming off of a Super Bowl title and playing on opening night. It's a big night. Don't get me wrong. We've played the Chiefs. We were up. We lost. We played Pittsburgh. We won. We've been in this game. We were in that game numerous times, three times in my career where we came off winning a Super Bowl. You want to win that game, but you also tell yourself the goal is to get back to where we finished last year and win. However, we get there. We understand. I think the different side of that is for Baltimore is like this team beat us at home in the AFC Championship to win the Super Bowl. That sting doesn't go away. They better be more juiced up for this game than the Chiefs because the Chiefs ultimately know where we want to go. We've done time and time again now. That's our ultimate goal. Baltimore hasn't gotten over that hump. And to me, it starts opening debt opening night to say, Hey, we're getting over the hump to share. We're going to prove it to ourselves by beating the Chiefs in Kansas City and a big at big atmosphere, big game going and doing it. So as much as I think the Chiefs want to win, I think they're still lying. Yeah, I mean, we want to win a game, but ultimately we want a three-peat. That's our big goal as a three-peat. If that comes with beating Baltimore or losing the Baltimore Open tonight, we'll take it. However, it comes as long as it ends and a three-peat. When you're explaining the Chiefs perspective, it occurred to me. Yeah, this is a guy that's got more than a decade of Bill Belichick imprinted on his DNA because a lot of the stuff that you heard over the years, I think was trickling out. And, you know, it's just one game. It's a process and you have to build them one at a time. The difference this year for the Chiefs, though, Devin, last year, losing the Lions, week one, that's not going to screw you up in tiebreakers other than the ultimate tiebreaker, you won loss record. This one has a little extra because all things equal at the end of the season. If the Chiefs and Ravens both win the division and have the same record, whoever wins this game is going to have the higher spot in the playoff tree. They don't care. I think that I think last year was another type of feeling of we didn't play the way we wanted to play during the regular season. We ended up where we said anyone we should say that you got to win this game. We got to do all these things. So we play at home in the playoffs. And then you go on the road and you win in the playoffs. You still want to play at home. It's better. But you also like, eh, it doesn't matter where we play anybody. We have the best team. We will figure out a way to win the game. And I think that's how Kansas City operates now. They're like, hey, whether we play in Baltimore, whether we play in Kansas City, if we play in Cincinnati, I don't think they care. They feel like this is us. We're the best team in football. The only way you beat us, you have to come knock us off. You have to beat us. We don't worry about anything else. If you're worried about home field advantage, if you're worried about this and that, good for you. But at the end of the day, when it comes to playing in the middle of January for the AFC Championship and a chance to go to Super Bowl, there's no doubt in our mind. We will beat you wherever we play. And I think that has, for that team, it's been made up over the years. This isn't like new. In 2018, we went to Kansas City. They were a better team in us in the regular season. We beat them at their home in Kansas City, cold night, blah, blah, blah. And I think that team has been building ever since those games against the Patriots and these different type atmospheres they've been in. They now, they don't care. They feel like we will build into the championship team. We're going to be when it matters the most. I think it's having a veteran head coach and Andy Reed, who's not coaching against what's popular or what we need to do to everybody else. He's coaching to be in the last game of the year and to win it. So I think this game matters tremendously to Baltimore. And I just don't think it matters as much to Kansas City, not saying they don't want to win. I just don't see it as this is like a must win week one. I just don't think it is for Kansas City. Hell, last year, they really didn't find the gas pedal until they got embarrassed at home by the Raiders on Christmas Day, a game that they fully expected to win. I talked to my homes about that game eight days before it happened after they had beaten the Patriots the prior Sunday. And the way he talked about it, it was just like an extension of the Christmas celebration. And they never expected to lose that. But that's what woke them up. And you never know when the wake up call is going to come, but you're right. They've seen that it's a culmination at the end of the year and they're good enough to wake up when they have to, but it does go a little easier if you come out and you just dominate. That's one of the things that makes the Chiefs unlike other dynasties we've seen. They keep it interesting. There's never a 53 to 10. There's never a Penn State, West Virginia. There's never a game that it's over by halftime. They have to earn everyone they get. And they escape at the end when they do win. They escape at the end of the season when you think they're going to hell, every Super Bowl, they've been down double digits that they've won. So I feel like that is what keeps it from becoming as annoying as it was when it was the Dolphins and then the Steelers in the 70s. And when it was the 49ers in the 80s, when it was the Cowboys in the 90s. There were so many of those teams that, you know, the Patriots to a certain extent, there were stretches, especially before your time with the team, 2003, 2004, they had like 17 straight wins between one season and the next. There's a point where it just gets boring. And with the Chiefs, it's never really been boring. And it's so interesting because as a team, like you said, you don't want to live that way. You would rather grow into how you're going to be as a team. And then when it starts to click, you want to be that team that goes on. I'm like, I remember last year sitting in the studio, we're talking about Baltimore San Francisco. And as a complete of any team, they're doing it this way and that way. And we're like Kansas City just they don't have it this year. They don't. And it's interesting because usually when you talk about a team that way and as they're as good as Kansas City, they grow from it and they turn it into where they're not that way anymore. But I think the way this team plays, I think the edge, the looseness, I think it leads to some of the things that when we were watching them, they're like, they just, they don't look good today. Like they're not playing at the level that we think they could play it. And it's not even sometimes for a day. It's a half. It's a quarter. It's not what you expect. And it's just tricky because to me, when you're that good and you have leadership the way they have leadership, they practice the way they practice. It's not like this team that comes out there and they kind of jog around practicing and just show up. No, they worked their butts off and practice. They're running hard to execute and plays and practice. But if we will see that change somewhat this year of like they grow into that team that just comes out and handles business, or if it's just their nature of who they are, their character of like, hey, our personality is to come out and have fun. However that comes out week to week, we live off of it and we just try to win that game. It'll be interesting to see if they kind of grow into that. I think as teams play together longer, they understand each other, you keep that core together. And maybe this is the year they come out and it's like, hey, this is a team that we've always waited to wanted to see, and they're able to do it. But I think because we've seen it now for a few years, I think it's just their personality and who they are. It is the behind the back pass. It's all those different things that it's entertaining. It's fun to see. But I think that might be the small gap that stops them from coming out and just dominating week after week. The difference this year though, they're the first team since the Patriots five years before you got there. They have an opportunity to win three in a row. And they seem to be determined to do it. I just wonder how much of the focus is. Let's go out and let's not just do it. Let's leave no doubt. Let's not have last minute escapes. Let's not have to wake up after Christmas and scramble for our best spot on the playoff tree. So low that they screwed up the ring. They thought there's no way we were three. We had to be two and our opponent was seven in the wildcard round. Like, yeah, we were the three seed and we went on the road twice. Something that Patrick Holmes had never had to do. He'd never had to play a playoff game away from Arrowhead Stadium. They went to Buffalo and won. They went to Baltimore and won. Let's not do that. Let's go beat the hell out everybody. But the flip side too is I really do think that the more you're tested along the way, the more prepared you are when that challenge comes and you've been through it and you've done it. And maybe that's part of Andy Reid's genius. He knows there's going to be a game at some point where you got to dig deep. So let's have some games along the way where we got to dig deep and we know we can do it so we don't give up when we're down 10. Now the problem is for anyone facing the Chiefs. There's kind of an institutional belief anyway. If they beat everyone 42 to 10 all year long and they find themselves down 10 in the Super Bowl. I have a feeling the guys on the field are going to be able to revert back to, you know, three proud Super Bowls were able to turn it around. So I just, I, hey, I'm never going to pick against the Chiefs as long as they have Patrick Holmes. Even though we've never witnessed three straight Super Bowl wins by any team and we know how hard that is. I feel like this is the team. Not that necessarily has the best chance to do it because the Dolphins could have done it. 74. They lost to the Raiders in that CA hands catch in Oakland at the time. The Dolphins felt like they could have done it. You know, it's easy for a team to get derailed, but it feels like the Chiefs have a as good a chance as anyone to pull this off. I agree. And I think we're in a moment of time when when you look at this team, you're kind of like, well, why couldn't they? We watched their team last year and they kind of struggled at the receiver position. You've mentioned. And you're like, okay, they went and they got Hollywood Brown. They changed up what they had. They went and drafted Xavier Worthy. They fixed some of those issues. Yes, they lost Lageria Snead, which I think is a big loss. But then you look at their corner debt. And you're like, they had a lot of corners who had to step up and play last year. They had watch and they had Williams. They had different gods who had to step up and play. So you're like, okay, they still have Chris Jones, Nick Bolton is still there. You're like, there's some key pieces who are still there, McDuffie still there to lead that corner group. You just still have Justin Reed in a safety position. So you look at some of the spots. You're like, I just feel like they retooled and they're like, they're good enough to win. But I do agree with you. It's that fine line of there's a reason why a lot of the great quarterbacks have won multiple championships and played at home. And it's because that's the easier way to get it done. That's why my homes, all of his playoff wins have come at home until last year, because that's the way you want to play. You want to be in those situations where you're at home. You're comfortable. Your team has been here before. So I do agree. They don't want to live the way they live last year. But I do ultimately think that mindset of we don't want to live that way. I remember being in meetings and hearing coach Belichick say that for years, like, this is the way we want to play this game. But if it doesn't go that way, we can still win. We have enough. And it goes down to what you just said. And knowing that we had Tom Brady in Kansas City, they have Patrick Mahomes. And if it doesn't go your way, but you're still in the game. There's still time left. There's no other quarterback you'd rather have on your team that Patrick Mahomes and that creates this cocky, confident feeling of no matter what game we play and we're still going to be in it. And that's a hell of a feeling to have when you play on defense, when you play wide receiver, when you play on the offensive line, wherever you play, you know the guy who wears 15 on your team as a bad man. It just, it creates that there's two minutes to go left in the game. You're down 10 as a defense. They're going to take the field and say, it doesn't matter. Just get the ball back. And you do that. And next thing, though, you look up, it's a minute and 10 left. And now somehow you've scored a touchdown. And you're only down three points that that's the difference of having a guy like Patrick Mahomes. And he's still under 30. He's got six years as a starter. The most impressive and accomplished six years for a starting quarterback in in league history. And he's just getting started. He's just on the front end of his prime. Bad news for everybody else. The $5 meal deal at McDonald's means you get to pick between them a double or a chicken. Then get a small fry, a small drink, and a four piece McNuggets. That's a lot of McDonald's for not a lot of money. Get the $5 meal deal today. Prices and participation may vary for a limited time only. I will be elderly. First of all, congratulations on becoming the official grill and bar sponsor of the National Football League. How does it feel to serve up the NFL? Man, it's a real dream come true. I'm glad we'll be able to serve up some extra heat this season. Do you have any plans to celebrate? Absolutely. We're going to serve up America's favorite bonus wings for just 50 cents each to kick off the season. Any of our sources, whether it's in restaurant or to go, it don't matter. It's all 50 cents all the time. Are you worried at all about any competition this season? What competition? Limited time, price, participation in selection may vary. Taxing or 2D excluded. When it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. With Indeed, don't search. Match. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors according to Indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. If you need to hire, you need Indeed. 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They're a team that's going to play hard. They're going to play physical. You have to accept that challenge. If you don't, they're going to dominate the football game. Even though they've traded through defensive coordinators, they have those same principles. I think that's more of the team, the culture that they have. I'm sure there'll be wrinkles that we'll have to adjust out there. They have a great football team, a great defense. It'll be a great challenge for us. You don't want to get pushed around. I think that's the biggest thing. Whenever you play teams like this, you want to make sure you match their physicality. We're fast and we've got guys that run around, but we pride ourselves in being physical as well. It's going to be a great challenge. We're playing best of the best football team in week one. You can't ask for anything better to go out there and see where you're at and how training camp and the offseason's paid off. One thing that benefits the Kansas City Chiefs continuity, the coaching staff, all coordinators are back. In Baltimore, Mike McDonald became the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. New defensive coordinator there, which is going to require a little bit of an adjustment and maybe that defense. We've seen that with the Ravens, 200, John Harbaugh. When you go into the season, it's like, "Man, the defense is okay." And then as the season unfolds, it's like, "Yeah, defense is pretty good." And then by the end of the year, it's like, "Man, that's a damn good defense." And it's part of the process you talk about, but that's one thing that I always harp on. Teams are going to get better or they're going to get worse as the season unfolds. The team that we see in January is going to be far, far different from the team that we see in September. And traditionally, the Ravens have kind of found their footing defensively and improved on the fly. I agree. And that goes back to what you first said. It's all about getting better. It's all about understanding, "Hey, if we come out hot and we play at this level and then we tail off, that's no good." And I think what Mahomes said is so true there. It's weird to see in this day and age in the NFL because of free agency and how freely guys move from team to team and coaches. When you have success, they leave, they go other places. But the Ravens, it always feels like when you talk about a Ravens defense, Mahomes said it. It's the same thing we used to say in New Wing. We would play a game where they're going to try to bully you. We can't get pushed around. Like that team, no matter the differences and the shift in it, they have a culture where when you play then, it's this feeling of they're going to try to little brother you. They're going to push you around. It's going to be a little extra stuff. They're going to be more physical than you. And you have to match that. And you have to exceed that. And I think that has been a difference for Kansas City is having a guy like Pacheco changes the way you play against the Kansas City Chiefs. They used to kind of talk about it as, hey, this is a team that they kind of want to play seven on seven. They run their routes. They want to be open. They don't want to get jammed. They want to do different things and make it a game where it's a lot of space and they get it to their fast players. That's one side of it and they still can do that. But when they hand the ball off to Pacheco, if you didn't bring your hard hat and you're not ready to tackle it and play physical football, he will run over you. He will run through you. That's the type of player is he's from New Jersey. He went to Rutgers. That's what they develop at Rutgers. Hard-nosed football players like Pacheco. And I think that created the dynamic that Mahomes spoke about of we need to be physical. We know we can do those other things, but this is a game that we want. When we play against the Ravens, the rest of the league to look and say this is a physical football team who can beat us different ways. And I think that's something that even when you win, they still try to go out there and prove because you want to set that tone when you play against teams. Great opportunity to do it that opening Thursday night of the season. Everybody's going to be paying attention to what the Chiefs do against the Ravens. The flip side of that coin. I love a good stat that was hiding in plain sight, but I hadn't really noticed it. And it never dawned on me that of all the thousands of players that have been in the National Football League since 2018. Only three guys have won the MVP award since 2018. Aaron Rodgers twice, Lamar Jackson twice, Patrick Mahomes twice. Two of those guys are getting together on Thursday night. Here's Lamar Jackson on the matchup with Patrick Mahomes. He's a great quarterback. See that? He's a great quarterback. He has the accolades to prove it. But man, he's just, he made things happen on the field that make it seem successful. I can see that. There are always pictures of you and Patrick Mahomes is kind of headlining this game. What do you think from people saying that this could be the next great quarterback rivalry? To be honest, I don't really pay attention to it. I see a lot of stuff on social media, but I try to shy away from the sports stuff because I know they're going to be talking about the Ravens a lot. But I really don't pay no mind because I just want to play football. Lamar Jackson looking leaner. He's lost weight over the past two years trying to be more explosive. You know, you get a little older, you get a little worn down, you got to do what you can to shed some of the... It's like throwing stuff out of a balloon, so the balloon goes higher. Like, I got to do something because I got to get back to being as fast as I was. Because some of these young guys, these young guys are coming in and they're pretty damn fast. It's nothing I've slowed down as is there fast. So, you know, he knows what's at stake. And Lamar Jackson, just like Josh Allen, just like the others who have been and will be, the problem with playing football in an era where Patrick Mahomes is everyone's arch rival. At some point, you got to be able to knock him off like Joe Burrow can. And I think for Lamar Jackson or Ravens, I think Lamar Jackson does a great job of why I sat down with him last year of... You always hear guys say like, "I don't pay attention to that," or like, "Hey, I try not to. Hey, it's not me versus Mahomes. It's me versus the Kansas City defense. Him versus our defense." He really does try to buy into that. But I think he also, because he is on social media, good amount, you can see Lamar Jackson involving different things, whether it's black football and him commenting on it. Like, he does see those things. But I think he does a good job of saying, "Hey, I see it. I'll address some of it." But I'm also going to make sure you know that, "Hey, we're focused over here. We're not doing those things. I'm not going to go in depth with you about it." Like, yep, Mahomes is great. He does things on the field. He fully knows what Mahomes does on the field. He saw the around the back pass and preseason. He's very into those things, but he shies away and he does it. I think he does a really good job in the media, both these guys, of making sure, "Hey, I'm going to talk about how great they are. I'm going to do all those things." But inside in Baltimore and their facility, it's all about how we beat them. What the things that they do that are going to give us a chance. It's shedding the weight. It's doing those different things that come back and be better this year to beat this team. But he does a good job of not buying into the hype too much, just kind of tiptoeing the line. Hey, yeah, we see it. It's a great game. Hey, I'm on social media, but I shy away from them, talking about the Ravens too much. We don't want to buy into that. Yeah, we get it, but we know they see everything. He sees everything. He's fired up and ready to go in this game. I have a vague recollection of one thing from last season from social media that he was aware of. Very well aware of something that one of us said, and not you, about what was going to happen to the Ravens in San Francisco. He was aware of that, and that's football related, and that was on social media, and he called me Mike Florist. Should I take him flowers Thursday night? I mean, we're going to be on the sideline. And I think usually for that game, it's the visiting team's sideline when we're there in Kansas City. I should take him flowers since I am Mike Florist. You better be careful. I don't know how close you'll be able to get to. If you go out there with flowers, you better just be a little careful of different guys running at you. I always hate when we're down there on the sideline, head is always on a swivel. You never know when someone is going to accidentally throw a ball your way. I'll take my gloves. I'll be ready. I'll be ready to one hand it. I'd rather one hand it than one head it. Hey, that might get you an instant call for a workout on a Tuesday or Wednesday. If you go out there with gloves and the ball's fired at you and you're just out of nowhere, drop the mic, snag a ball on the field. I could easily see Andy Reid calling you and saying, Hey, Mike, we love to put you to a workout for the Kansas City Chiefs. I have seen enough from guys like Sims. When I was younger, I used to love to play football with my friends, tackle, and then we got too old for tackle. You come back from college the first time and you've put on the 15 pounds and guys like Terry CLs and literally dislocate shoulders. We can't play tackle football anymore. We need to play touch. But you think you're decent and then somebody who can really throw a football throw is a football at you. And it's like, Hey, whoo. Hey, what? Man. Chill. Like, yeah, like, like, yeah, baby. You put the jugs machine on on 12. So yeah, I'm not interested. I'm not interested in getting hit by a football that has been launched by an NFL quarterback. I agree. You don't want those problems in shoot. I'm only two years removed. And unless I have gloves, I don't want those problems either. Like, if you put the gloves on, like, I remember even doing, like, we did a kind of fantasy camp type of thing with people and Drew Bledso came back. First, you are retired and they're going to have Drew throw the ball to everyone. He's the former quarterback. He's like, let me warm the shoulder up a little bit. I want to solve. I want about 15 yards apart. And he's warming up and he starts to throw it. But, you know, as a former player, I'm like, I can't let Drew Bledso know that he's throwing a ball a little too hard now. And I remember walking away and I looked at my hands and I was like, what the hell did I just go through? This is supposed to be fun. And Bledso's firing the ball at me. He's been retired for years. And still, like you said, the same thing with Sims, these guys get the ball back in the handy lake. Jason Garrett. He got the ball. We're in studio last week. He gets the ball. He licks his fingers. I'm like, Jason, you're not throwing a ball anywhere. Like, relax. But these guys love to just sit there and fire the ball at guys. And I know he knew that the ball was coming a little hot. But he was like, yeah, McCordy better know I can still throw this ball. So I definitely understand where you come away and throw with those former quarterbacks. The arm lasts a lot longer than the legs. The arm is going to last well into the 50s for most of those guys. The leg was part of the problem for the Ravens last year, that weird incident in pregame warmups where Justin Tucker was infiltrating what the Chiefs were trying to do. Travis Kelsey at one point through the little tee and afterward Travis Kelsey said some things that we can't do the full quote here on this show because, you know, we drop an S bomb once in a while, but Travis Kelsey went full F bomb on Justin Tucker. Justin Tucker poked the bear last year. There it is. He's down there doing his pregame routine. There goes his helmet courtesy of Travis Kelsey throwing some of the other stuff away. Patrick Holmes trying to warm up Tucker down there. And what Kelsey said is, you know, you could tell by the look on Tucker's face, he knew what he was doing, kind of like will wink in his eye. Like he knew exactly what he was doing. They go the balls, they go the helmet. Kelsey wasn't having any of that. Well, Devin, this time around, Justin Tucker is not going to poke the bear. Justin Tucker was asked about what happened last time. He knows. He knows. He made a mess last time. He's not making a mess this time. Here he is from earlier in the week. It's the great football team, great players, great coaches, and do everything I can to prepare myself to be ready to contribute to the Ravens winning a football game. And that's all I got to say about it. So you go about it the same way as the last five? I will prepare and my focus will be on preparing myself to go in to the football game and contribute to the Ravens win. That's all I care about. Now, it's funny. This is another example of the difference between the words that you see on a screen and the way they're delivered. The way they were delivered tells me that John Harbaugh said to him, there better not be a word that comes out of your mouth. There better not be an action that comes out of your body that in any way, riles up the Chiefs. And if you're asked about it, here's the paper. This is what you are to say. It just feels like he had it memorized and he's under orders and he's not stepping out of line this time. It's funny you say that because I read it in the doc last night and I'm looking at his quotes and I'm like, I wrote down what else he's supposed to say. That's what he should say. Like we're going because I'm thinking he's talking about we're just going to win. I'm doing what I need to do for the Ravens. And then I watched the video just now on my honest is pretty funny. He knows what he did last year did not help the Ravens win a football game. No matter if he was just going through his routine and he does it every single week. When you're down there and you're warming up to kick field goals and the starting quarterback from the Kansas City Chiefs comes down there and they're warming up. You move out of the way you do what you need to do, but you do it in a way that is not right in front of them where you don't have your helmet by where he's doing his drops or whatever you want to call it. He fully understood that and whether it was horrible or maybe it was teammates who then came if you played on the Baltimore Ravens defense who went in that game and Patrick Mahomes I was there last year and they went in the first two drives they went down and score touchdowns against a defense that by the end of the season we felt like was arguably the best defense in the NFL for what they had left injury wise and what was taken to field. And all of a sudden this Chiefs offense that last year when we watched wasn't the same kind of offense back to back 14 points on the scoreboard just like that. And I think for Tucker you sit there and you're like I don't know if I helped us in this situation so now going into the game. I will let everyone know I won't say it in a way that makes me seem scared. I am simply doing all that I can do to help the Ravens win a football game. I'm all for Justin Tucker. What he does for that team is huge, but I always say at the end of the day, I have a ton of respect for kickers. I think they have a hard job of you show up in a moment where everyone's watching just this one thing. And if you miss it. Everyone hates you. If you make it is just like hey, he should have made it. That's a sucky job. I should always talk to Stephen Gaskowski about it. But at the end of the day, when you're a kicker, you don't want to be the center of attention in any game because you just don't have enough to do with the game. You're not kicking enough. You're not doing any. So move out of the way, let the guys who are determining the game for most of the time. Do it and you just kind of stay off to the side until you're called in and be like Justin Tucker has been his whole career wanted the best to ever do it. That's the role he wants to stay in. Not being the guy who gets Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs going. So I love his approach. Great approach, Tucker. Well, and as Kelsey had said, he could see the look in his eye. He knew what he was doing. And for those of you who were seeing the video, I saw the look in his eye that he knew what he was doing. Somebody told him, this is all you're going to say. And he kind of had a smile and he kind of had a little twinkle and he knew this is all he's going to say about it or else. And think about it this way too. The Ravens traditionally kind of the bullies, right? They send the kicker. They send the kicker to mess with Mahomes and Kelsey. Are you kidding me? I suspect that in and of itself pissed off the Chiefs like this is the guy you send to try to mess with this. You get all these badasses and none of them are willing to come down here and give it. You send the kicker to do your dirty work. Not. And I don't think they did. That's what made it worse on his own. If they're going to, if they're going to mess with them pregame, it's not going to be the kicker who gets sent down there. They better say Matt Abike down there to do some damage if you're going to be if you're going to send anybody. But I do think that is, I think that's what is so awesome about the game of football is that I truly believe Justin Tucker was doing his normal routine. And then they came on the field and he saw it as a chance to, like you said, kind of be a little bit of an a hole. I'm going to do this. But like what I love about the game of football is when Kansas City left the field, I'm sure they went into the locker room. And they were steaming and they saw that as Baltimore did on purpose Tucker did on purpose. They sent them down. And that you'll the beginning to me that feel the beginning of the game for them. Whereas, yes, it's a big game. Yes. And we always hear people say you don't need any more motivation. What a chance to go to the Super Bowl. It's true. You don't need it. But if it just so happens to happen. And you get it and it creates that. It's like, it's a little bit of extra that I think got them going that when you're playing against a team that I don't say better than you but they've been in this situation and they've shown that they can execute and you just don't want to do that. You don't want to give any little extra to it. So, but I do think that for Tucker and for Baltimore, there has to be a little bit of like, yeah, I'm saying this and I'm going to smile because this is what they need. But I wouldn't be surprised if Justin took tries to find something to insinuate of like, hey, this happened last year. I'm not going to do it the same way. But I'm still like, I'm still going to be a little bit of an a hole. I want you to feel that I'm here a little bit. I just don't want to be in as mainstream. So I'm going to try to see if there's something that we can see in pregame that just reminds us a little bit of like, we're still the Ravens. We're still the bully. And we're going to still try to do something that lets you know that. You know, there's that raw rock contrived bull crap that coaches will try to come up with players, try to come up with your guy, Tom. Nobody believes in this. I remember that game. You guys beat the chargers in the division around it. And he says on the field to Tracy Wilson, nobody believes it's like Tom, everybody believes in you. What are you? What are you talking about? Everybody believes there's a team. Then there's the real, the real and organic disrespect. I mean, think about it. The chiefs were less than a month removed from being embarrassed at home by the Raiders. They, they weren't the team that had the swagger. That was one of the moments that kind of kind of injected that back into them and equipped them to have the mindset necessary to beat the Ravens in Baltimore. And then boom, it's back in the Super Bowl. And then boom, it's another 10 point deficit. And the next thing, you know, they're holding up the trophy and they're hanging a banner on Thursday night. And we will be there for it. Let's take a break. We won't be there the next night, not us. Others have gotten the assignment to go to Brazil for the peacock game between the Eagles and the Packers. And not everyone who is going to Brazil is thrilled about that. We'll explore that next year on PFT. Here we go, Popeyes. Here we go. What do we want? Popeyes, chicken wings. Why do we want them? They're the official wing of watching football. At 599, 46-piece. What flavors are we going to get? All of them. Be more specific. Sweet and spicy, signature hot, roasted garlic parmesan, honey barbecue, sweet and spoken chipotle, and honey lemon pepper. When do we want them? When we're watching the game. That's right. Game time is wing time. Grab that chicken from Popeyes. And participating U.S. restaurants, prices may vary. Hey Applebee's, congrats on becoming the official grilling bar sponsor of the NFL. How does it feel? I'm glad we'll be able to bring some extra heat. Any plans to celebrate? Yeah, we're going to serve up America's favorite bowling swings for just 50 cents each to kick off the season. Limited time, price participation in selection may vary, tax and gratuity excluded. [BLANK_AUDIO]