The Steelers Tomlin a loss in Cleveland

Chris:
Okay, yes it is. Here it is, the Sports Porch Black and Gold Edition. You are watching us live all over the world on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on X, on YouTube, and on two channels on Instagram, Pittsburgh Beautiful's channel and the Sports Porch. And of course, of course, I'm going to drop this comment right now. You can always listen to us. You can stream us live on our sister radio station here in Pittsburgh. It's called Radio PGH. And I just dropped that link in the comments. Click on that link. You can listen to Radio PGH live at any time. And yes, I am going to drop the podcast right after the show so you can subscribe and review it. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your frigging podcasts. Yes, here we are, black and gold. It's the, well, this is going to be kind of a depressing thing, but who wasn't here last week? What do you mean going to be a depressing thing? Wait a minute, who wasn't here last week? Was Mark not here last week? I was at. Mr. Mark Schwab.

Steve: I was vacationing.

Chris: So to my right at HQ here in the studio is the Grand Schwabini. See, he's actually in the studio. There's my hand. Right in front of me is Hockey Jesus, who's going to have some things to say. Absolutely. In the studio, by the way, the studio is going to be getting a facelift this week. So I don't know if it's going to look any better, but we're not going to drop the studio. No, we're going to facelift the studio. That's right. And hopefully, hopefully it will look better. John Edberg on YouTube is already commenting. The players are not good enough to overcome Tomlin's mistakes. Well, first of all, First of all, also let me remind you that you can follow us on YouTube at, um, what is it at, at sports at the sports thing, the black and gold sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, I'm not knowing our address. That's exactly right.

Marc: So, um, Mike is waiting for the good, the bad and the, yes, we're going to, we're going to get to that.

Chris: Mike says, I didn't get to watch the Steelers Browns game waiting for your take on the good, the bad and the ugly. Uh, so what are we going to do? Of course, we're going to talk about the Steelers game because there's a lot to talk about there. They have an upcoming game this weekend, Cincinnati, right? We're also going to do our NFL predictions, as we do every week. It's Thanksgiving week, so Happy Thanksgiving to everybody before it happens. Happy Turkey Day. Gobble, gobble. And then we're going to do a little hockey talk. Hockey Jesus is in the house. Um, we might make some comments, some funny comments about the pirates. There's a lot of billboards going up, I think is really funny. We should just talk about that just to have some fun. We got a trader Joe snack time coming. And then of course what we're watching and guys, I'm just going to, I'm going to tell you this right now. I did not watch a documentary for this one. Okay. Really? I got you. I got you covered. No. Okay, good. I got you covered.

SPEAKER_00: I figured you would. Don't worry. That's big news.

Chris: Yeah, it is big news. So Amy is already saying the good was the weather. We love snow games. She ain't wrong. Yeah, so let's let's get right into this take because you know, our shows are on Monday nights. She might have taken my good and this was a Thursday night game. And I do have a bone to pick with these jerk-offs here. Jag-offs, sorry, got to use the right Pittsburgh term. Come on, say it. I got a bone to pick with the jag-offs in the studio to my right and across from me. We'll get to that in a little bit.

Steve: And we're going to have you, the fans, decide who's right. Yeah, we'd like you to decide.

Chris: So stick around for that. There's no right or wrong here.

Steve: Oh, yeah, there's definitely a right and wrong. No, there is not a right and wrong. Yeah, you're wrong and we're right. So, I mean, let's just get it right out there.

Chris: There's right and there's you. That's right. OK, fine, fine. Let's get to the game first. The Snow Globe loss in Cleveland. Who is at fault? Who is at fault? Do we want to go there? Do we want to go good, bad, and ugly first?

Steve: No, let's go good. The people want the good, the bad, the ugly. They ask, we give. I think they'll be able to discern who was at fault by our good, bad, and ugly.

Chris: OK. Sure. OK. Were you having beverages in the car on the way here? No. Doesn't this voice sound a little?

Steve: No. You know what the problem is? My damn check fuel cap light came on on the way over. Oh, that's no good. Have you ever had that happen to you people out there? Yeah. You get into the car, you turn the car over. I just got it inspected. I'm thinking I'm good for another year. Right. And I turn it over and the damn thing says, check fuel cap. And you know what that means? They don't know what the hell's wrong.

SPEAKER_00: Oh, right.

Steve: It's the universal. Oh, you got to take the cap off. You got to spin it back on crap. And that never works. So then you got to take it to mechanic. And before you know it, you're out $1,500.

Chris: Yeah. Well, my check engine light keeps coming on and then going off and then coming on.

Marc: I keep getting a low tire pressure, so I got to keep filling it up with air.

Steve: Yeah. That's a pain.

Chris: How did we ever survive before the low tire pressure?

Marc: Son of a gun. Yeah.

Chris: All right. The snow globe loss in Cleveland. Who is at fault? Good, bad and ugly Schwab or you weren't here last week. So we'll start with you. What was the look? It's a loss. But what was the good from that game?

Marc: See a three. Yeah. See a three. Yeah. Gets it done. Right. Turn it into quite a good. Second or third receiver. I mean really made a ran a great route made a Very nice catch on a well-thrown ball from Russell Wilson to give the Steelers the lead and a comeback effort. Mm-hmm I believe it was three catches 78 yards I've really actually been very impressed with his progress from beginning of the year thinking to be honest that he was a marginal player to even be on the team, to actually thinking he's a productive part of the puzzle here. So, CA3. Excellent. Nice work.

Steve: Okay. H.J. That was a very good CA3 good. I am going with the third down believe it or not We were killing it on third down and russell wilson is the master of third down When it's third and when it was third and 13 like a year ago, you would just be like we should just pun it now now it's like third and 13 you're expecting them to make it and it's really kind of incredible that that Russell Wilson has such efficiency on third down, not afraid to throw it past the sticks, and even throw it deep on some rare occasions, and get not just first downs, but significant yardage when it comes to the third down play. So I thought their third down calls were excellent.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. The good for me actually was, believe it or not, it was Russell Wilson. I mean, he did throw for 270 yards. Um, he didn't lose the game. Uh, it was literally a blizzard and you know, we're going to get back in a blizzard. Yeah. It brought him back in a blizzard. Um, and, and we're going to get to the bad and the ugly soon, but You know, I look at that game from the offensive side of the ball, you know, of course, Warren was lead in rushing with 45 yards, Najee had like 30 something, and CA3 78 yards receiving. And I'll tell you, Russell showed that I don't care what anybody says. And to be honest, since Thursday, I haven't listened to the radio. I didn't want to hear what anybody had to say other than some of the things we'll get to in a little bit, I'm sure. Yeah. But I think Russell Wilson played a good game. I think the offense actually called a decent game. They worked Darnell Washington into the game a little bit more. I think they're still learning how to use that guy that, you know, you're going to die on that hill.

Marc: Yeah, I know.

Steve: I know. I know. Mount Washington, no matter what.

Chris: I know he catches two balls for 20 yards. I think he had three. I think they're really working. I think they're working a bit. So. So. So, yeah, that's that's my good badge, Robert.

Marc: Well, I'm going to I'm going to split the bad and the ugly into two parts. Both are Mike Tomlin. But I'm going to say the bad is clock management. Um, just don't get it. You know, I mean, at the end of the, I mean, you know, it was so, so many days ago now I can't remember, but I think it was like, you had a choice of like taking a timeout and getting the ball back with like a minute, five seconds. It was like a minute 20. Yeah. A minute 20. Yeah. Or save a time out and get the ball back with 40 seconds. Right. Yeah. It was ridiculous. It makes no sense. Yeah. I just don't get it. Okay. Why are we making these horrible decisions?

Chris: So you're saying bad and ugly are going to be Tomlin. So what's the bad? That's the clock manager. That's the bad. The bad is clock Okay, H.J., John says somebody had a Mount Washington poster in his gym locker. No. Was that you, Joe? Yeah. No, he's saying me. C.D., the doctor's in the house. Good. No excuses. Bad Tomlin clock management. Ugly pickings at the end of the game. Okay. You're bad.

Steve: The bad is very obvious to me. It was the play calling on fourth down. Someone please explain to me how the Pittsburgh Steelers are the only team that when it's fourth down and less than a yard, maybe a yard, maybe a yard and a half have to get underneath center. Run backwards five yards, hand the ball off to the guy while he's stationary. Now he has to run seven yards to get two yards. Someone explain to me how that makes sense. It just absolutely makes no sense to me. Their play calling on fourth down was horrendous. It was awful. And I guess you could throw in the two point conversion attempt also, although I think there was interference on that play. Just awful. You've got to do better on those short yardage plays. Everybody else in the league can do it. The Pittsburgh Steelers cannot do fourth down.

Chris: And this is kind of dovetails on that. The bad for me was the gadget plays for Justin Fields. Um, I just think it was the wrong time to kind of pull that out. Um, you don't, these are, these are plays in, in, in my world, when you went to Russell Wilson, as the quarterback and he, he came to play and he played well. Yeah. You don't need gadget plays from Justin Fields. He's your backup quarterback. I get it. He's really fast. Okay. And, and listen, this is a franchise that had slash. All right. So we're kind of addicted to the gadget play with the guy who could play receiver or quarterback or running back. I mean, hell they, they, they went out and got quarter rail Patterson, But when you put Justin Fields in the game, especially against a team like the Browns, and Schwaber and I were talking before the earlier show, they have nothing to lose. When you're coaching from a position of you have absolutely nothing to lose, whether you win or lose this game truly doesn't matter. So do whatever it takes to win. Take all the risks. As soon as Justin Fields trots out on the field, you know damn well he's getting the ball.

Steve: Except for when he threw it deep.

Chris: Right when Russell Wilson should be making when it should be Russell Wilson making that pass So that's not my ugly though, but it got pretty damn close those take those I And I hear Steelers fans all the time on the radio and I hear the radio guys always talking about it We should put in some gadget plays for Justin Fields Shut the hell up. No, they were playing great without fields good backup quarterback. You know, if Russell goes down, I have confidence that fields will come in and keep them competitive. Okay. But you don't need the gadget plays. And it was demonstrated very clearly other than the 30 yard run that he was able to scamper in, in, in that, but that's though that did spark.

Steve: It did. And that's the hard part because that one gadget play really sparked the offense to get moving. Yeah, but they didn't score any more points. And Cleveland had no, they couldn't stop that. There was no way for them to stop that. They weren't ready for it. But I agree with you. There were too many gadget plays. Right. I think when it's third down and it's six, you got to have Russell Wilson out there. Third down and long, you gotta have him out there. The one time I might have Justin Fields in there would be in fourth down. But the problem with fourth down is his cadence. His cadence is different. And then somebody's gonna jump. And that's not necessarily the offensive lineman's fault. It's just a difficult thing to do.

Chris: John on YouTube also says the Steelers with Wilson are moving the ball great between the 20s But our 30th in the red zone, I believe that is why they're trying fields yeah, I think they're they're trying anything to kind of get a spark either in the red zone or or or like a spark for the offense. I just don't, I don't think it's necessary. I think Russell Wilson has like the second most, uh, fourth quarter comeback victories in the league in the last 10 years. And you know, you leave him out there and you let him win the game that, that, that I, I think they would have won the game if they just let Russell Wilson run the offense start to finish. So, okay. Schwab are the ugly.

Marc: Well, you know what, I was going to make my ugly, um, the, uh, the, uh, the Justin Fields, um, too many plays. Right. You know, I think that the sparking, uh, you know, the 30 yard run as a spark is good, but that's all you need to do. You know, you got the spark, let's roll. I thought the fourth and one long pass by Justin Fields was idiotic. I mean, why you don't have Russell Wilson making that throw? It was almost like you were trying to be too cute. You were trying to outsmart them and you outsmarted yourself. Like, you're thinking we have Justin Fields in, there's no way he's going to throw. Well, he's going to throw. Well, remember the reason why he's not throwing or you don't want him to throw because he's not that great at it. Right. Right. You know what I mean? At least a long ball. Right. Right. But, you know, so that was going to be my ugly. But I guess I'll just go for another ugly because it's really already been talked about. I'll just say just the defense. Not that the defense was bad, but that, you know, you had a lead late against Cleveland. It was playing with, you know, their backup quarterback. You know, Amari Cooper's gone. They've packed it in for the year. And, you know, you let them go down and score and win the game. So, you know, they didn't get the stop when they needed it.

Chris: Right. The defense didn't show up. What's your ugly, H.J.?

Steve: I've got a I've got a very hot take. So just sit down for this, because we are sitting down.

Chris: Should we stand up and then sit down again? No, that's not necessary. OK. All right. Just checking.

Steve: My my ugly are are two things. You're going to go, T.J. Watt. I'm not. My ugly is that damn elf at the center of the field. That elf is the ugliest frickin' elf. It really is. It's the dumbest thing you could put on a stadium floor. And on top of that, I was happy that the snow actually covered it. Right. Because it's stupid. I hate that elf. It is, but you know what though?

Marc: And it's ugly. But you know what though? Elves do well in the snow. Do they? How do you know? They live in the North Pole. Yeah. Do all elves live in the North Pole? They make toys for Santa Claus. Really? Yes.

Chris: You seriously believe that?

Marc: Yeah, so the snow game actually helped the elves. Prove him wrong.

Steve: OK, go to the North Pole and prove that there is no.

Chris: Well, I mean, if you if you're a Lord of the Rings believer, they don't all live in like snowy places. We're not talking.

Marc: You're talking about real elves. Yeah. The ones who make the toys. Yeah.

Steve: Not not the actual elf that's on the field in Cleveland Stadium. Yeah.

Chris: Well, that elf stadium, that elf looks like he should be on some sort of offender list.

Steve: Yeah, it is. I think he's in a lot of Brown's dreams. Definitely on Thursday night.

Marc: So there's a there's a second part to this. Yeah, really.

Chris: Well, the second part, what does that have to do with the Steelers play?

Steve: Well, I'm staying away from the Steelers play because I think all the real obvious uglies have been taken care of. The second ugly is actually the Browns fans. And here's why I say this. The Browns are three and eight. They acted like they just won the freaking Super Bowl. Well, they did for them. They did not. They just beat the Steelers. Yeah. Like, I mean, if that's their bar for success, beating the Steelers on Thursday night in Cleveland. That's just ugly.

Chris: It's always been their bar for success, though. You know that. It's just ugly. You know what this is, Schwaber? This is this is this is Cleveland derangement syndrome because because he he's he's putting down the Brett. Now, listen, I'm not. You're talking. You're talking CDS. Yeah. Cleveland derangement syndrome, because he's just so stinking mad that a horrible Brownstein beat the Steelers, that he doesn't have anything he can say other than What a loser fan base if this is their Super Bowl, which I happen to agree with you.

Steve: Everybody agrees with me. I know. Nobody will say it, though. So I just think it's funny. I have to be the one that says it. I'm sorry, but it's true.

Chris: I just think it's funny. Our entire lives we've known him. I mean, has he ever said anything different about the Cleveland Browns? No. There you go. There you go. Okay. So the ugly for me from the game, um, was the Tomlin clock management, the timeouts, um, the, the, the lack of decision making the first field goal that, uh, they trotted, uh, did we really try it? No, it wasn't.

Steve: It wasn't snowing when they tried to kick the 58. It was in the first half when the, before the snow came. Yeah. But they did try and kick a 57 yard field.

Chris: Yeah, it was flurrying. But anyway, the point is that by the time they trotted Boswell out on the field and the line got set, there was like six seconds left, which they didn't even discuss it on the broadcast. What that tells you is that Tomlin was on the sidelines trying to decide whether to go for it or not. And it's kind of like, look, the guy has kicked 60 yard field goals. like you you either decide ahead of time or you don't and and this goes to what you were talking about i really think this was this was and i don't know why i didn't bring it up last week this was the trap game this was the game that tomlin let safransky outfox him by just playing football and tomlin's second guest a ton of decisions in this game.

Steve: I have a theory on why they do so poorly in Cleveland.

Chris: Would you like to hear it? Sure. As long as it has nothing to do with that stupid brownie.

Steve: No, it has nothing to do. This is actually about the Steelers. Okay, good. It's how they travel up to Cleveland. None of those NFL players want to get on a damn bus. Do they take a bus? And travel from Pittsburgh to Cleveland on a bus. Yeah. To get off and go to a hotel. It's like, that's, that's like Bush league. That's like right out of the Johnstown's chiefs. Yeah. And you got, you know, the guys mooning, you know, people out the, out the window and stuff. Yeah. That's what I think their problem is. I think they actually need to fly to Cleveland, pretend like it's a far enough away, even though it probably be a 20 minute flight. Hell, I've, And even if they've got to like take a take a rest stop, like fly to Detroit and fly to Cleveland, fly to Dallas, feel like a real football game. I think when they get on that bus, they just lose their mind. Yeah. Maybe it's the carbon monoxide or maybe it's like, why am I on a bus? Right. Like, yeah, we're just we're just a bunch of losers. We're going to a football game on a bus like it's high school.

Chris: Listen, the only problem with that, that's my theory. The only problem with that for me is if you've ever flown from here to Philadelphia, It's literally like you get off the runway, you're in the air, and then you land in Philadelphia. It's like jumping across a creek. Flying to Cleveland, why don't they just take a plane and roll it up the highway? Then they wouldn't feel like they're on a bus, right? Just take a private jet, roll it up the highway.

Steve: Even if you had the best bus you could possibly have, it can't be nice.

Chris: Well, I mean, there's some buses online that I think are pretty good. Can you get a trolley to go there?

Steve: I don't know. It's just shit that I come up with. I'm sorry. It's, you know, it's my brain. It doesn't function normally.

Chris: Yeah. I don't know. CD says, uh, turnpike disease, CDS. You're just making up diagnoses. Isn't that what you do all day long CD anyway?

Marc: Well, I am interested in your opinion guys, cause nobody really brought it up except me sparingly, but I did listen to a lot of, uh, Pittsburgh radio and there was a lot of boy TJ Watts having a down year, right? What are your guys thoughts on that? Go ahead a check.

Steve: Yeah, I think he is having a down year for TJ Yeah, I think I think he just for some reason is not getting off the line like he normally does He actually is doing and I think they highlighted this on Thursday night football. He's actually one of the best run stoppers in the league now, so I think Don't know if he's trying to change up his games and said not just be the bull rush guy to try and be you know More complete player and maybe that's why he's not getting so many sacks But let's face it when you put him on the left side all the time It's really easy to chip him with a lime with a tight end on the line or another running back to help stop him from doing it and and that's what that's what teams have figured out and

Chris: So John on YouTube again says Garrett outplaying TJ didn't help with the Browns delusion and TJ and Minka are both off and we could talk about that in a second. But as far as TJ is concerned, what I didn't like, the limited amount of media I listened to this week after the game, What I didn't like was when they were saying that TJ Watt was non-existent in this game. That's not true at all. He just didn't have a big sack or a splash play. He made, at least from what I saw, at least three tackles for negative yardage behind the line. Those plays are huge. I mean, they're not as big as a seven-yard sack or a strip sack. Now, Herbig had a strip sack. You know, so there's the other side of it. So I do not think that T.J. Watt played a bad game. I think the Cleveland had the right scheme for him. And I also think that the snow didn't help. I think the field was slippery. So you're not going to get as much leverage no matter what kind of cleats you put on. As far as he's, as far as him having a down year, I don't think we'd be having that discussion if he had a sack or two in this game. So no, I don't think he's having a down year. He has had splash plays in a lot of the victories. I think this game was a game where he was not as big a factor as he normally is. I'm going to save my opinion on the down year for at the end of the year. Does that make sense?

Steve: There's still some ball to be played for sure.

Chris: But I think this wasn't his best game. I'll give you that and it's not been his best season Not so far. No not so far, but he's got time to to catch up now Well, honestly, maybe it's because he's playing so many games.

Steve: Normally he's injured by now and that is true and has had a rest He could be gassed a little bit and I will tell you to be honest.

Marc: I've always been Sort of, I always wonder why T.J. Watt sort of doesn't play more downs. And I've noticed this year he is playing more downs.

Steve: Yeah, he's definitely in there much more.

Marc: So he's in there much more, which means he's got a greater propensity to get gassed.

Chris: Now, as far as Garrett outplaying T.J. didn't help, look, they both play on the defensive side of the ball. It's not like they're playing against each other. I mean, Garrett you know, Miles Garrett had a great game for him. But I don't, I tend not to compare that. I mean, Garrett could have had four sacks and TJ gets two big sacks and the Steelers win. So who outplayed who?

Steve: Jon's just mentioning it because that, that fostered all the Browns being real excited about the win.

Chris: Well, of course, yeah.

Steve: Because Garrett said, I'm going to be the man. And he was the man. He absolutely was the man. And I love the schemes they run. Did you see how we just ran past our center? It was ridiculous. Yeah. He didn't even see him coming. He was like, who was that?

Chris: I'll tell you, I'll tell you one thing. It, it, you know, take that helmet incident out of it a few years back, which people still reference. But I, and, and of course being in Pittsburgh, everybody's like that DJ should be player of the year. You know, I would take miles Garrett on my team any day, any day. He is a monster. Sure. Anybody would. Yeah.

Steve: But we have T.J. Watt, so we don't need him. Stay in Cleveland. Enjoy the Elf.

Chris: Yeah. So John says T.J. and Minka are both off, and we have Mr. Stiller fan. Thanks, Mr. Stiller fan, for being here on YouTube. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel. We would love that. He says it was a short week after a Ravens game. Browns game was a trap game. Thank you very much. We talked about it. Move on. We can beat the Bengals.

Steve: We agree there, Mr. Stiller. Yeah, we do agree. You finish excellent sentences.

Marc: What did he say? He finishes your sentence.

Chris: He does finish my sentences. Anyway, so now here's the one thing I will say. If I was going to pick an ugly at this point in the year, as far as a player was concerned, I don't care what anybody says, it's Minka Fitzpatrick. Oh yeah. He is having a horrible year. I don't care.

Steve: How can you not pick up Judy coming across the middle on that third downplay? Exactly. Ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's going on with him.

Steve: I don't know what the coverage was, but he was right there. He had this. He was coming his way.

Chris: I think it was actually a single high safety. I think he was the only guy out there.

Steve: to be honest, he was in the short field. He easily could have made that play to not let him get that third down before they scored that touchdown.

Chris: I don't know what's up with Minka. I don't know if he's, if he's maybe, maybe there's some sort of like light injury going on and he's not at full speed. Maybe he's just not in sync with the rest of the defense. I mean, they have had a lot of Kind of turn over the last couple years in that secondary. Maybe I guess anything. Well, you know, the other they need him to play is the point. They need him to step up.

Marc: The other thing, too, is, you know, sometimes these interceptions, they kind of go in bunches. True. You know, like there's always going to be guys like you have seven interceptions one year and the next year they have zero.

Chris: you know yeah it just happens but he's he's not even making the big tackles he's not even making the big play it's not necessarily the interception it's the you know he he's he's stepping he's taking the wrong step one way at least have a pass defendant right right you know break break it up play a little better so uh mr stiller van on youtube chimes in here uh games coming up this gauntlet of quarterbacks we have coming in our super bowl quarterbacks this is a huge test The results of these next six games will determine whether this team is a contender. Well, yeah.

Steve: I mean, if you like Joe Burrow, but who likes Joe Burrow?

Chris: Here we go.

Steve: He'll throw three interceptions.

Chris: He's also got BDS, Burrow Derangement Syndrome. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: So as soon as Joe Burrow shows me a Super Bowl winning ring, then I'll kiss it.

Chris: Yeah. There you go. Okay, maybe we can make that happen. That would be funny.

Steve: I would love to see that in the fantasy world. Would you? That's where you'll have to see it.

Chris: Okay, you're hilarious. So we have, who do we got coming up here? We're at Cincinnati on Sunday at one, then we're back home against Cleveland, and then we hit Philly and Baltimore, then we have Kansas City and Cincinnati.

Steve: We're about to run the gauntlet.

Chris: Yeah, seriously, I mean you're talking Burrow, Winston, Burrow, Hurts, Jackson, Mahomes, and Burrow.

Steve: They'll be battle-tested for the playoffs. If they make it, yeah. So, I mean, this is good. I think it's good for the Steelers to have to go through this gauntlet of quarterbacks.

Chris: Yeah, and Mr. Steeler fans chiming in the same way I am. Burrow twice, multiple times. You know, who else has that coming to them? It's a great run of games that could easily test us.

Steve: Hey, the Steelers only have to go three and three in these last six. They can do it. Yeah. That's all they have to do. Yeah. And if they go three and three against these teams, I think they'll be fine.

Chris: Well, I think that, like I said, the good for me in this game was that Russell Wilson still played a good game. We need to get our running game going. The line was in a little bit of disarray.

Steve: I agree with you. The line seems to be falling backwards a little bit. Yeah. They need to get it together.

Chris: Yeah. I mean, by now, you know, did you hear… It's still a relatively young

Steve: line. They've been playing together for a year and a half now.

Marc: Yeah. Two rookies on the inside.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Well, I'm not saying that Frazier's brand new and he's only he missed four games.

Chris: Yeah. But he's he's the guy that's he's really good. Frazier's really good. But here's here's the thing. I'm not saying they're bad. And I do agree. We've been talking about this last couple of years. They need to learn to play together. But did you hear Chris Collinsworth on Thursday night say that Dan Moore is a really, really good tackle?

Steve: I'll be honest with you, I had the volume down so low, I didn't hear very much banter. Yeah, I did hear it. I was cracking up. The other thing, if you're not watching the stat view or whatever that one is, you're missing a whole new game. Really? Yeah. It's so much better.

Chris: Okay. Yeah. We'll try that next Thursday night.

Steve: Cause they show the whole field and you can see the whole play. And then when they do the replay, they show kind of the side view where you're only seeing the players up close. You get to see them run the patterns. You get to see who's open. You can tell if he's going to be in the end zone before he even scores. Right.

Chris: Right. Yeah. Mr. Stiller fan, he's very active on the podcast here tonight. Offensive pass protection is a huge black eye. It's probably Scott. Scott, is this you? Yeah, it might actually be Scott. GM didn't find depth at right tackle during the offseason. Is that something the counselor would say?

Steve: Oh, yeah. He's all over offensive. Like, he talks about passing. He's like, watch their feet. And if they go like this, or if they go like that. Then, you know, they're going to get sacked.

Chris: I'm like, what are you talking about? Maybe he's getting a little too caught up in this.

Steve: Well, I mean, he was an offensive lineman for being a 5'2", 175 guy in high school.

Chris: Yeah. He stopped down to TJ's on Thursday before the game. Getting his turkey down there? I don't remember what he got. He came through my register. We were talking about shit and then he had to go. I don't remember. Anyway, anyway, anyway. All right. That was the good, the bad, the ugly. Now, um, I want to remind everybody, if you're watching us live, you're watching us on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube X, and Instagram every Monday night at 7 30 PM Eastern time. This is the sports porch. It's the black and gold edition. And right after this, I'm going to drop it into the podcast, the sports porch podcast. And you can get that on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your frigging podcasts.

Marc: We lost to Hockey Jesus.

Chris: Hockey Jesus is going to get a Trader Joe's watermelon water. He's so upset about the game. He can't stop golfing. OK, so before we get on to our NFL predictions, I just have to bring this up. I have a bone to pick with these guys. Mr. Stiller fan has one comment. Having someone at right tackle would have allowed Broderick Jones to play his natural position. Instead, we lose rookie. uh, and criticize Jones for that.

Steve: We'll save that for, we'll say, we'll save that for next year, Mr. Stiller fan to see what they do with Dan Moore. Yeah, seriously. That'll, that'll, that'll take that argument either away or it'll put gas on your fire.

Chris: Yeah, there you go. Put gas on your fire. Fire, fire, fire. Anyway. All right. So listen, guys, I want to know what everybody thinks about this. OK, so I have I have a job. I work odd hours, not odd hours. I work one to nine most days. It is rare. It is rare that I am able to actually watch a Steelers game live. So Thursday night, sorry for you. I am taping the game and I have successfully asked for the cooperation of my coworkers to not reveal anything. So I go into a co-host.

SPEAKER_00: We prefer co-host.

Chris: No, no, no, no, no. Coworkers at work. What I'm saying is, nobody at Trader Joe's watches the Steelers. Would you let me get this out for Christ's sake? Okay, so everybody that I work with knows I don't want to know anything about the game and I have I have pretty much perfected Not list. I'd like like I after after I get out of my car before I go into work I turn the radio all the way off so I don't accidentally turn it on in here like stupid Yeah, you can hide yourself from it. I hide myself. Now, Hockey Jesus here has had experience with me in this back in the RG3 days, so he already knows, which is why I'm more ticked off at him than anybody else, because he knows how this makes me feel.

Steve: But Schwab's the one who puts gas on that fire.

Chris: Of course, he lights your fire. Well, come on, baby. Light my fire. Let me let me. Well, wait, let me get out the situation. Boring our fans. I'm not boring them because everybody goes through the point. Everybody goes through this. So I'm taping the game. My buddy's here. My co-host here. They know that I am not watching the game. And what they do is they we have a text string between the three of us and they start texting back and forth about what's going on in the game. And I like I give them the benefit of the doubt. And I usually send a text that says, hey, guys, taping the game. Remember, for a while they would say, OK, but then on Thursday night I get something like, Klein lost in a time warp again. Don't pay attention to your text. And they start texting the shit in the game. And it ruins it for me.

Marc: Well, here's the thing. If you would actually pay attention to the text, you would know that we're not actually telling you anything there. You can figure out. That's the thing. Steve says, like, we see a big play. And Steve goes, wow. That was the red hat.

Steve: You don't know what happened. That was the Redskins game. That was the Commander's game. But even when we're texting about the Steelers, we don't say like, wow, that was a great touchdown, the Steelers scored.

Marc: Right, right, right. We just go like, oh man, that was a big play. Like, yeah, we'll just be like, wow, didn't see that coming. Right.

Chris: Exactly. Right. Exactly. Right. Yeah.

Steve: Oh, that was unexpected. Yeah. Or typical Tomlin. Right.

Chris: Right. Right. Which tells me he made a bad decision. OK, so maybe not.

SPEAKER_00: Maybe not. You don't know that. Come on now. Yeah.

Chris: And on top of that, I'm at work and you're fucking with me the whole time. And that's you're just getting joy out of that.

Steve: You know, there's this thing, it's called leave the text group.

Chris: I can't. Yeah. Yeah. There's this thing. It's called you could text each other by yourselves.

Marc: And which we decided to do. We decided to move the conversation over to another place because we realize just how upset you were, how angry you were. And he threatened your wife. He threatened my wife.

Steve: He did.

Marc: That you weren't going to bring home cinnamon bun pasting spread. Yeah. And, you know, he wrote a text like, you know, three paragraphs long. And, you know, we thought it was at that point we felt, well, we have to look out for your general well-being.

Chris: This is what I sent to Amy. I did not threaten your wife. No, no, no, no, no. What I did was I threatened her cinnamon bun spread. It's the same thing. I said, tell Mark to stop texting about the game or you'll never see these. And it's the three jars of Trader Joe's cinnamon buns. You're threatening my wife. No, I just said she'll never see them.

Marc: I'm not threatening her. That's like bodily harm. It is.

Chris: It's threatening her well-being. No, it's actually threatening Mark's well-being, if you think about it. They're connected.

Steve: They're married. When you're married, you're one body.

Marc: You remember that? Here's the bottom line. Let me just tie it in a bow here. Okay, just check. We get it. You're sensitive. So we'll stop, we'll back off, we'll text just each other, and that way you can live your peaceful, non-existent life.

Chris: So here's the last thing I'm going to say about this. And John, by the way, said he's sitting on the edge of his seat. for this. This is what I said. And I want to see if everybody agrees. OK, this is what the crux of it is. I said, you guys still going with this.

SPEAKER_00: You guys, of course, I tied it in a bow.

Steve: You guys. No, you didn't. You guys, you can't you can't bottle this.

Chris: You guys do realize that the entire reason for watching football is that you have no idea what to expect. Good, bad, boring, ugly or brilliantly exciting. I can't do that because I work now during most games. So without seeing anything, I now know that the Washington game is total crap until the last couple of minutes. So why watch? I had to help my mom and daughter. So I watched the first half of the Steelers game and just got home. Jesus, put yourself in my shoes for a second. I wouldn't do that if you couldn't watch the Eagles and wanted to just have the game.

Steve: So it was a three-paragraph text.

Marc: You know what? Maybe next time I'm thinking about texting the three of us, I'll just say, hmm, what would it be like if I was Chris right now? I have to help my mom and I have to bring food over to my daughter and I can't watch the game and I'm so sad. OK, I think I will just send a text just to Steve. Oh, my God.

Chris: All right, anyway, I just want to know what you guys, you know, if you're taping the game and you tell your buddies, look, I'm taping the game, should they lay off the text string and just text between themselves or does it not matter? Do you drop a comment, send an email? you know, throw gas on somebody's fire. I don't really care. Mr. Stiller fan, who I do believe is the counselor. Blitz, Blitz, Blitz. Joe Burrow needs to be rattled. Does he ever, did he pay attention to anything or is he just so fired up that he wants to talk Cincinnati? It's not Scott. Yeah.

Marc: He wouldn't, he wouldn't be M. He'd probably be S or K. No, it's M for Mr. Stiller fan.

Chris: That's why. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Mr.

Chris: Joe Burrow needs to be rattled like a baby's toy. I want this defense to make Joe look average. Well, you might not. So let's talk about the Cincinnati game, but they'll probably win anyway. So Larry Lang on Instagram says, should have figured it out by the end of the first quarter that if the running game isn't working, start passing Browns game plan to double team watt work for the Browns. Yeah. So I wanted to get an IG comment in there. So we thank you for watching on Instagram. Um, Yeah, let's move on. Let's talk about the sensei game real quick. That game happens to be. Is it here? No, it's in Cincinnati, right? It's in the jungle. Yes. So jungle, baby. Who day? So what are we expecting in this game? A win. What am I expecting? Yeah, he's just expecting a win. That's obviously he doesn't care how they play. He just wants to win. That's it.

Marc: I believe the win, but I think it will be the classic, you know. AFC North battle that comes down to the end. I think the wind in the end 4240. No, I don't think it's gonna be that high scoring. Like a 27-24 Boswell with a late field goal.

Chris: Yeah, we call that almost every game. From 47. Yeah, from 47.

Steve: No, we felt pretty good about the Steelers decimating the Browns, and we were way off on that.

Chris: I don't have the scores written down, but all three of us did think they were gonna win. Yeah. I, I, I think this game is a problem for the Steelers secondary because this is the game where Minka has to show up because Jamar Chase is unstoppable. The, the, um, you know, Burrow is having a great year. Um, their defense is, is not great, but our running game right now is not great. And, um, we have, This is another game where I'm going to say it's a Belichick move. You got to plan for Jamar Chase. You got to double team him. It'll be easy to do because they have no running game.

Steve: He's saying it'll be easy to do. They have no running game, dude. I mean, you can play the nickel the whole time or the dime, whichever one you want, and just protect against the pass because they don't need to have too many guys out there. And when they become predictable, guess who gets a lot of sacks? T.J.

Chris: Watt. Yeah, I agree with you there. Joe Burrow has already passed for 3,028 yards and 27 touchdowns. Jamar Chase has 1,056 yards receiving and 12 touchdowns. So I don't think it's going to be easy to do.

Steve: Very easy. That's all they have. You shut that down. You kill them. But that's what I'm saying.

Marc: That's hard to shut down.

Chris: That's all they have. And these guys are in the league leaders.

Marc: I don't think it's hard to shut down. But if you keep you know, burrow and chase to, you know, maybe 14 points and then get anything else, then you're going to win the game.

Chris: Exactly. The Bengals are 21st in the league against the run. They're giving up almost 130 yards per game. Thank you, Mr. Stiller, for those. I should maybe I should just say counselor. Thank you, counselor, for those. I'm pretty sure that is Scott, by the way, Mr. Stone for those Steelers are fourth against the run. So that's a good sign for us, or at least it should be.

Marc: Why doesn't he just call in? Yeah. Give him the number.

Chris: Scott, call my phone. Good Lord. I know your number. I know. I just have to put the Bluetooth on. He should just call in. Um, anyway, so I, you know, I think what you have to do is you do have to, um, I, I, my phone is making me.

Marc: install, would you just stop it? Let's get to our picks. John Ed Borg says the Bengals aren't out of it yet. Burrow can be successful against Steelers D. The middle is always open. I don't know if I agree with that.

Steve: Eh, I think he, well, I mean, Burrow's going to be successful. There's no doubt he will be successful. He's a very good quarterback when he plays against the Steelers, but he has a hard time beating us because he has to throw too much.

Marc: Beanie Bishop is in the middle.

Steve: The time Cincinnati beat us was when Mixon could run, and that's how they beat us. Yeah.

Chris: So, counselor, if you want to call in or no, it's not Scott. Not sure who that is. All right, Mr. Stiller fan. Well, if anybody wants to call in 412-805-7236, 412-805-7236, we'll get you in the show live. Sorry about that. You just sound like the counselor. So, yeah, very similar opinions. OK, still a fan.

Steve: That's a good thing, by the way.

Chris: Let's move on to our NFL predictions. You're watching the sports porch live all over the world. We start at 7 30 PM Eastern time every week. I dropped the podcast right after the show on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast, Spotify, or anywhere you get your frigging podcasts. And we're live right now on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube X and Instagram. Um, NFL predictions. Every week we pick three games. We keep track. We still don't decide what the winner gets other than bragging rights. But this week, this past week, Mark and Chris picked the Eagles. Steve picked the Rams. uh all three of us picked the steelers chris and steve picked the niners did we know that braylon allen was going to know if you go back if you go back we said that we thought that purdy was going to be the guy yeah and he was going to be healthy right and he wasn't um and mark picked the packers so mark was two and one Chris was 1 and 2 and Steve was 0 and 3. Yeah, that's my first caller for the year. Yep. Yep. So Mark is now 23 and 10. Steve is 18 and 15 and Chris is 15 and 18. I am creeping towards 500. So am I. All right. So we want to know we want to know what you're what you're hold on since the weather Sunday, 21 degrees feels like 19. Looks like you meant it says 165 chance of snow, 165 percent chance. Hundred and sixty five inches of snow.

Steve: I think that means like, yeah, like Pete, we're right. We can play in the cold weather.

Chris: Mr. Stiller's just got a lot to say. We haven't shown blitz packages all year. Keep those blitzpatch packages until games like this and the rest coming. Joe won't have a clue where the blitz is coming from. All right, so going on to our predictions Thursday night this week, we picked the Thursday night game. The Sunday night game is the Sunday. Are the Eagles playing on Sunday night again? No, that's a four o'clock.

Steve: We were not we decided against we got we got thanksgiving games friday games sunday games They're all over the place this week.

Chris: There are lots of thanksgiving. Okay, so the eagles game is a sunday night I'm gonna adjust that so the first game is thursday night Dolphins at the packers. We want to know who your pick is drop it in the comments We'll start with the grand schwa beanie. Oh 16 chance of snow says mike larson

Marc: I am gonna take Tua and the Dolphins. They're clicking a little bit. Packers, Jordan Love, kind of happy with the interceptions lately. They just beat up on a, let's face it, you know, when you don't have Trent Williams, you don't have Brock Purdy, I mean, you got nothing there. So, yeah, I'm gonna go Dolphins smacking at the Packers.

Steve: Okay, I like the way Jacobs is running the ball for the Packers And I think he could do some damage against that that Dolphins defense. They're pretty porous. I Like the Packers in this one.

Chris: Yeah, I like the Packers too. It's The Dolphins that you know, they're playing at Lambeau Field. That's 1-0 for me. It's probably gonna be It's probably gonna be a trolled game All right, let's see if we got any picks in here. Orlando Brown Jr. still out. I don't know. Chargers are moving down the field with ease, so he's watching the Monday night game and calling it for us. Okay, Sunday, Eagles at the Ravens. Your pick in the comments, Schwaber.

Marc: I just got to go objective here. I got to take the Ravens. I just think the Eagles have won seven straight. It's really hard to win more than seven straight, so you gotta lose to somebody. You're at the Ravens. It's a hard place to play. They're battling neck and neck with the Steelers for the division, so I'm gonna take the Ravens, and I hope I'm wrong.

Steve: Okay. Ditto. I think the Ravens are gonna win because they're probably gonna lose tonight.

Chris: I think… Man, it's really hard. The Ravens defense, the Ravens have a good run defense and a bad pass defense. And the Eagles have a pretty good running back in Saquon Barkley and a great line and a couple decent receivers. So this is this is tough for me. It really is. You know what? I'm going to go with the Eagles on this. I think the Eagles are going to go. I think this is a I think they're going to ride this big victory in into Baltimore, and I think they are the better team. I really do. And their defense is playing really, really well, and they have speed on defense. So I'm going with the Eagles. All right. Next game. Is this also a Sunday game? Chargers at Falcons? Yes. OK. Chargers at the Falcons. Who do you got, Schwarmer?

Marc: I'm gonna take the Falcons in this one. You know, Chargers, you know, nice team, but I don't know. You know, like the Falcons are like six and five, which basically means they win one, lose one. Right. It's time for them to win one. All right.

Chris: That's it. Chargers, time for them to win, or Falcons, time for them to win one.

Steve: All right. Dijon going off. H.J.? I like the Chargers nine to seven. Ooh, wow.

Marc: Yeah. Touchdown and safety or three field goals? Three field goals.

Chris: Okay. I think Kirk Cousins pulls this one out. I think he does. I think the Falcons are going to win this game.

Steve: Looks like I'm going 0-3 again, boys.

Chris: They have to win. They have to win. Okay. We'll see what happens next week. Now we're going to move on to Stump the Yenzer. What is that? Well, every week we've got our resident Yinzer sitting right across from me in Hockey Jesus. He has pierogi DNA in his blood. It's moved to my brain. And yeah, that's good. That's getting bad. We do have some predictions here. John Edberg says the Chargers are sneaky right now. Mr. Stiller fan says the Eagles are the most complete team in the NFL, not the Lions. Eagles defense is championship material. Uh, Pennsylvania Superbowl question mark. Well, I don't know about that. That'd be fun. That would be fun. Actually. We'd have a great time. We'd have to have a huge Superbowl party. We'd have to have a porch party.

Steve: No, we wouldn't because we wouldn't be able to text you during it. Cause you'd be working.

Marc: No, I'd take that day off. No, you'd be working.

Steve: No, you'd be working.

SPEAKER_00: We already know it. All right. Stop the Yenzer.

Chris: Stop the Yenzer. The resident Yenzer crossing me hockey Jesus. I give him a Pittsburgh sports related question. He tries to answer it. The Grand Swabini to my right, he tries to answer it. If the Grand Swabini gets it right and Hockey Jesus gets it wrong, Grand Swabini is an honorary Yinzer for the week. I still don't know what the upside or downside to that is, but we'll figure that out at some point when I get these guys to actually like… Take some risks. Stump the Yenzer. This is hockey related for Mario's or Sydney 600th goal. The waiting period for the Hall of Fame was waived. Sorry about the typo in 1997 for Mario Lemieux. Only the ninth time in history. Who was the player they waived it for right before Mario? Who was the player before Mario that they waived it for?

Marc: Question for you. Does be. Does it, is it automatically somebody from Pittsburgh? Cause this is a Pittsburgh.

Chris: No, it's not automatically somebody from Pittsburgh. It's a hall of fame situation. They've only waived the waiting period for nine players where they said you're in. So they did it for Mario. So there was a player before Mary. And when I say right before, I don't mean like the year before. So it's somebody who got sick probably. Yeah, no. What do you mean somebody who got sick? Why would it be somebody who got sick? I don't know. That's a tough one.

Marc: They want to get him in before they die.

Chris: Well, I don't know. But they waived this for this player. This was the player before Mario. Okay. Doesn't mean it was like in 85.

Steve: I don't even know who would have retired like in the 80s or the 90s that was Really, really, really, really, really, really, really good.

Chris: Well, let me just caveat this by saying when I say right before Mario, I just mean the guy before. I know. Doesn't mean that it was in the 80s or 90s or 70s or 60s. It's just could be in the 40s. It's the previous guy. And there was that was the eighth time.

Steve: Gretzky was still playing when he retired. So it couldn't have been Gretzky unless it was Gretzky.

Chris: Mr. Stiller fan is guessing Gretzky, right?

Steve: I think he retired already. I don't know.

Marc: No guess?

Chris: It's a big name player. Yeah, of course.

Marc: It has to be.

Steve: Oh, geez. I'm just going to say Gretzky because I'm drawing a blank with anybody else.

Marc: Give me Gordie Howe.

Chris: Good guess. But not true. Bobby Orr in 1979.

Marc: I was going to go with him second.

Steve: Gretzky retired after Lemieux.

Chris: Son of a bitch. Bobby Orr. Bobby Orr. OK, do we want to do Hockey Jesus here? And then move into a little snack time? Let's do snack time first. I'm hungry. OK, you want to do snack time first because you're hungry. So give me a biscuit. You know what that means.

SPEAKER_04: Taste the biscuit. Taste the goodness of the biscuit. Taste the honey sauce.

Marc: Taste the goodness of the biscuit with that honey sauce. Uh-huh. I don't like the way it tastes with my finger wings.

Chris: All right, everybody, it is Trader Joe's snack time. And what does that mean for us here on the sports porch? Well, it means that we get to eat something. So everybody knows now that I work at Trader Joe's, great place to work, great place to shop. They are not an official sponsor. They don't pay us to do this, but they did give us a permission. And what I do is every week I bring home a selected Trader Joe's product. We test it out, which means we eat it, we chew in your ear, and then we tell you how we really feel. This week it's a simple one because I worked all week and I was tired so I just grabbed a box of these. Trader Joe's. sea salt chocolate chunk cookies. Now, there is a reason I brought them home, and it's because of the sea salt part, because we do have regular chocolate chunk cookies, but I brought these home because of the sea salt. Because these have salt in them. Why though? Well, you'll see, because they have sea salt on them. Let's see if that changes your feeling about chocolate chunk cookies. There you go. Well, let's see.

Steve: Can you see the salt? Oh yeah, I can see the salt on it.

Chris: See the salt. See the salt. That's right. Be the salt, Danny. Eat the salt. Eat the salt, Stevie.

SPEAKER_04: Eat the salt.

Steve: Let's see it. Definitely can taste the salt. Good cookie. That's what I'm talking about. It's a solid cookie. And the salt definitely adds A salty flavor? It gives it a little bit, it gives it that little kick.

Marc: It's hard to ruin a chocolate chip cookie.

Steve: I prefer mine, this is a little hard for me, I prefer mine a little softer.

Marc: Well these have been in the box for a couple days. You could throw it in the microwave, kind of melt the chocolate.

Steve: Oh yeah, that'd be good. You could break this up and put it into some ice cream too. Oh yeah.

Chris: That'd be good, too. Now, here's an interesting tidbit. I was introduced to these by another coworker, but I was introduced to the gluten free, which I'm not. I am personally not a fan of many things that are gluten free. I just think, you know, we all know they, some of them have taste issues or texture issues. Um, but they're gluten free. We're incredible. Yeah. Blew my mind.

Steve: Oh yeah. So you can use coconut water. You can do a lot of different things with gluten free.

Chris: Yeah. So there you go. TJ's sea salt chocolate chunk cookies. Thumbs up from the guys. Oh yeah. Definitely. A hundred percent. All right. Go get them. Thumbs up from Trader Joe's snack time.

SPEAKER_04: Taste the biscuit. Taste the goodness of the biscuit. That's right. Taste the honey sauce. Taste the goodness of the biscuit with the honey sauce. Yeah, yeah, get it. Don't get that honey sauce on me. I don't like the way it tastes with my chicken wings.

Chris: Hmm. All right. We the reason we play the music after the bit is because we need time to like finish time to finish. Like I only have half my cookie down. We almost never do. So please pardon the chewing in your ear. Anyway, this is the sports porch. Black and gold. If you're watching us live on Facebook at 7 30 p.m. Eastern time every Monday night. We are on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, X and Instagram, please. Follow us on all of those channels and subscribe. And I'm going to drop the podcast right after the show. So you can go back if you didn't, if you, if you caught us late, thanks for being here. You can go back and listen to the podcast. Please subscribe to the podcast. Please leave us a review. We would love that. Trying to gather those reviews and subscribe to the YouTube channel at the sports sports podcast. I remembered it now. There you go. The sports sports podcast. Now we are blessed. We are blessed every week. I don't know, which is, should I say royalty, not royalty, with majesty, majesty, clergy, clergy. That's right. We are blessed with clergy. Because sitting across from me in the studio is the one and only Hockey Jesus, who you can follow on our YouTube channel at the Sports Sports Podcast. Hockey Jesus, who up until recently, preaches after every single Penguins game, does his own little podcast there, gives you the ins and outs of how the Penguins are playing, good, bad, the ugly. gives you his honest opinion on it. And he hasn't missed a game for the last two years until these last two. And I will give you the reason because he made it very clear to us. He was very afraid that he was jinxing the penguins. Yes. And so he decided he made a conscious decision and it just it ate away at him. where he said, I'm not going to watch these next two games because I have to see if I am the curse. Yes. I think it's interesting if Hockey Jesus thinks he's a curse. I mean, then what does he become? Hockey Satan?

Marc: Shouldn't you know as being God?

Steve: Yeah. Well, I did know, but I had to prove it to my brethren.

Chris: Okay. Okay. So we now know it's not the case.

Steve: Yeah, that was proven on the very first shot of the very first period of the game I was not watching. When Jari let the first shot go in against Winnipeg. Here's the problem. The Penguins are in a rebuild. And have been in a rebuild for the past two years. However, they won't say the word rebuild. They don't think they're in a rebuild. And yet, here we are. They've already decided they're keeping the coach. Uh, Sid has already said that he doesn't want out. So he does, he does not want to be traded. I know that popular opinion says trade everybody. You can't get worse than last place. And that's true, but that's not what, that's not what the franchise wants. That's not what Sydney wants. So, guess what? We just have to sit there, grin it, and bear it. That's really what it comes down to. I've got this great analogy that I'm going to give, and I'm going to give it tomorrow because I'm going to do a Hockey Jesus tomorrow, about how hockey is like a whitewater rafting experience. If you're intrigued by that, check it out tomorrow because I'm going to go through the whole thing. I can't wait. It's going to be great. I was going to do it tonight. I was going to do it tonight, but my throat is, is, is, is going crazy right now. All right. And I get too excited when I do those things. Right. And if I don't have the proper liquid, it just could be a cough fest. You've seen it before.

Marc: What is, what is also probably wait, probably rather wait a night when there's not a Mitch golf call.

Steve: Well, I might be waiting a long time. Yeah, you might be. I mean, he had 16 points in 18 games.

Chris: Yeah. So, so we're just going to, we're, we're, we're, we're moving on from the, There's not a lot to say till tomorrow, is what you're saying.

Steve: Well, Sidney scored his 600th goal.

Chris: Yeah, congratulations to Sidney Crosby.

Steve: That was kind of like the biggest milestone that was the last one that was out there for a while. Now what you'll start to see is Sidney Crosby passes Mario Lemieux in total points. Now he's 11th all time. Right. I think in order for Sidney Crosby to be in the top five all time, he's got to get to 2,000 points. Where is he now?

Marc: 1600 It's a lot.

Steve: It's a lot. He would have to play Basically, you have to play five more seasons Which I might he could he could do it, but he'd have to be that point point per game player Yeah, and the you know, that streak is still alive So you'll still see that you'll still see that creep into the conversation because if he does that then he's he's better than Gretzky in the points per game average in a career, which is pretty impressive to be in front of Wayne Gretzky. We do have a Penguins question.

Chris: Yeah. First of all, Mr. Stiller, okay. Will the recent trade, Mike Lawrence, will the recent trade from the Predators help? But Mr. Stiller says this is a great show, so we do appreciate that. So going back to Mike's question, go ahead.

Steve: I think we should just end on it's a great show. Yeah, we're done. No, no, Mike. Um, no, it's not going to help. I mean the, the problem, the, and I don't, I'm not even sure, like the trade with the predators, you're talking about that, the new guy that they got, he's a 23 year old rental player. Really? I mean, he's really a nobody there. All they're really trying to do with their draft picks now is get players who can play right now and not wait until 2027. Yeah, so they're just flipping draft picks for players whenever it becomes available and that guy by the way is from Toronto Dubas knows him from some other place. So he thinks he's good I don't know if Dubas is the right guy to be making that decision But that's probably more why you picked him then for any other reason so this whole notion

Chris: excuse me, this whole notion about, you know, where Sidney Crosby is in his career. And again, you know, Schwarer and I do our sister show over in Philadelphia, right before this show.

Steve: Yeah, I heard you guys. bashing Sidney Crosby.

Chris: Well, no, no, we were bashing you. We didn't bash Sidney Crosby. No, we were bashing Steve because he's got, he's got Crosby derangement syndrome.

Steve: So, um, well you should, when a player brings you three Stanley cups, you should absolutely have them.

Chris: I'm not saying it's not justified. Uh, anyway, well, what we were saying is that what we were confused about is, you know, Why wouldn't, now we already knew what your answer would be to this because we've had this part of the discussion before, but you know, if you're the penguins. Why wouldn't you trade a Sidney Crosby kind of at the tail end of his career, but still pretty close to the top of his game to get something back in a rebuild like a four first round pick? Yeah. Yeah. And we know that's not what the penguins do. They want that. They want the milestone moments and all that. So we get that. Although for me, I'm kind of like, hey, look, but when you say that Crosby wants to stay here, what I'm thinking to myself is, I understand the loyalty to the franchise and that's, it's like a Cal Ripken move. I get it. Right. But if you're Crosby and you're looking at this team and you're looking at what's coming through the system and where the payroll is, and you know, he's privy to all of this. Isn't it first on your list to win another Stanley cup because you're going to score your 700th goal. On the ice, no matter what, does it have to be in Pittsburgh? I mean, I'm just using I'm throwing out. He'll get 700 goals.

Steve: But first of all, you're incapable of thinking like Sidney Crosby.

Chris: Of course. OK, of course. But am I wrong to think that way, Robert?

Marc: Well, not entirely. See, the one I mean, look, I I can understand maybe a player saying I want to be a one team guy for my whole career. However, the flip side of that, though, is He's got to be pretty frickin unhappy losing. Right.

Steve: There it is. There are two different things, but you're right on both counts. He doesn't want to lose. He wants to be in the playoffs. That's what I'm saying. He buys into the delusion that this team is pretty close. And he's got to be rethinking that right now. So I think what they need to do is they need to find players who he feels comfortable playing with. For example, this year, It's a dead year. They should just play Gino and Sid and Russ together. Just have one line and just let them play. Let them have fun. Let them get all the records for all the team and let everybody else struggle. That way they're having their fun and then we can find out what's going on with the other players in the second, third and fourth lines. They got to get rid of guys like Miedo and Achari. Garbage guys, they're like 28 32 year guys get rid of them Hayes gotta go just bring in you bring in the youth movement and just try things Like they did it with Owen Pickering the defensive guy. He's played great You don't know who you have until you play them, right? That's what they need to do.

Marc: Although I did hear, um, I was listening to Mark Madden this afternoon. Okay.

Steve: I didn't listen to him, so I'll be interested.

Marc: His, his, his point of view on this was, um, you can't bring up NHL players that aren't ready.

Steve: Well, he's right about that because they won't play.

Marc: He said it'll stunt their development.

Steve: Well, I mean, it didn't true O'Connor last year. He actually grew throughout the year. So, you have to play him with the right guys. Like, I think if you put Pullen, Pooley, Harvey, and O'Connor on that third line, they play pretty well together. You gotta find young guys who can play with other young guys and turn that into a new lot. And you don't know how that's gonna work until you can try it. And they're gonna make a lot of mistakes. But you'll be able to see that they have the talent to be able to stay in the NHL.

Chris: Yeah, OC on Instagram, on the SportsBorch Instagram says, I've paid attention to Hockey Jesus's nostalgia theme with the pens. It does seem like they're dining out on yesteryear a lot. Yeah, they are.

Steve: Yeah, it's true. And there'll still be more of that. Don't worry. There'll be plenty of that to be had. Yeah. But they got it. They got to try something else.

Chris: Yeah, I I agree with you. I am just perplexed Of course you say, you know, yeah, I can't get into the mind of Sidney Crosby But I'm looking at it and saying, you know, the guy's not in it for the money. He gets paid plenty of money He's obviously not a guy who's gonna hold out try to get as much money as possible, right? So respect for that He's a loyal team player respect for that By the way, it rarely works out. Well, right. But does he really buy into the, and we can just end it here, but I'm thinking, does he really buy into the delusion that they're that close? Yeah. Okay. So, you know, what am I missing? But like you said, if he's rethinking it.

Steve: If you watch the games, there's always a point in the game where it looks like they're really close and that just collapses.

Chris: Right. So how many more times is that going to happen before maybe even Crosby says, you know what, this rebuild may take a little longer than I thought. Well, I'd like out.

Steve: It won't happen this year. I can promise you that. Right. But it might happen like if Balkan decides not to come back and let's say Latang wants to be traded. then it might happen. Until then, I think it's going to be status quo.

Chris: Hockey Jesus, you can follow him on the Sports Sports Podcast, at the Sports Sports Podcast on YouTube, and on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your friggin' podcasts. After every single Penguins game, he preaches, and he tells you like it is. And unfortunately, it's a down year for the Penguins, but you kind of saw this coming. Last couple years, you've been talking about this, and here we are. But hey, nobody's more dedicated than the Hockey Jesus. Let me tell you that. So at this point, we're going to move on to the last portion of the show. This is actually one of our favorite portions, and we like to call this what we're watching. And while Hockey Jesus goes and gets another something or other or coughs up a lung or whatever's going on, but should we call an ambulance? Do you think we should call an ambulance?

Marc: I don't know. 9-1-1.

Chris: We call this what we are watching. Schwaber, tell us what what we are watching is.

Marc: Well, there's so many things to choose from so many different channels. My gosh, Netflix, Prime, Hulu, Apple TV Plus, Max. I mean, it just goes on to be on and on to be.

Chris: What's the one you made up last preview preview?

Marc: Balano. So, you know, there's just so much and scrubby. It's so hard to find something good. So we are going to tell you either a. We found something good. Try it. Check it out. Or B, we tried something not good. Don't waste your time. Don't waste your time.

Chris: Yes. And the qualifications are this. You must have finished the season that you're currently watching. So you don't have to, if it's a 10 season show, you don't have to finish all 10 seasons. You just have to have finished whatever season you're in. So I'm at the end of season three. you know, you have to finish it. Or if it's a documentary or a movie, you can't have walked out of it. So it can't be a review where it's like, uh, this was so bad. I walked out. You have to, you have to, you know, white knuckle it all the way through. That's right. Um, so we're going to start this week again, uh, with the grand Schwab Beanie, the grand Schwab Beanie, you are watching something on, uh, Netflix called, The Lincoln Lawyer. Interesting. I've seen this.

Steve: I saw the movie with Matthew McConaughey. This has a lot of seasons to it, doesn't it?

Marc: Well, yeah. The third season is the one that just came out. So I just finished the third season. And it's good. It's very good. I would say that this is very comparable to like a Bosch type show. Yeah. And I will say the thing that's kind of impressed me the most about it is actually every year has gotten better. Like I honestly think the third year is the best season so far. Right. You know it's just basically you know, story of, you know, a lawyer that just takes on some of the most difficult cases. And, you know, they're basically trying to solve the case at the same time while they're trying to get somebody acquitted or, you know, or find who's really guilty, that kind of a thing. And it's just, you know, it's it's it's, you know, suspenseful. It's the characters are good. You might see it. You might notice And that picture that, that woman in the, uh, the green dress left, that's actually Nev Campbell who like is now playing a mother. Oh yeah.

Steve: Oh wow. Yeah.

Marc: Yeah, it is. You're right. You know, so it's a cool cast and it's, uh, it's just a good kind of quirky show. I recommend it. It's, it's a good watch. Okay.

Chris: Yeah. I, I, like I said earlier, I, I watched the Lincoln lawyer, the movie was actually the first, uh, date movie my wife and I went on with Matthew McConaughey. And we thought it was pretty good. So, but I haven't watched the show yet, so maybe put it on the list. Yeah, put it on the list. All right. H.J., uh, what we are watching, H.J. is watching, actually, I do want to watch this. Oh, you do? I have not.

Marc: It's called Into the Fire, The Lost Daughter on Netflix. Is this a documentary?

Steve: It is a documentary. This is something that really happened in life. Okay. And it's basically this woman who gave up her daughter when she was, she had a daughter when she was like 15. And her mom said, you don't know how to do this. You need to give it up for adoption. And she did. And then it went to, you know, some parents somewhere. This is, this happened in Norfolk, Virginia. And of course, you know, the woman who gave away the daughter is basically distraught over it. thinks about it her whole life, you know, and she was surprised that her daughter never contacted her, you know? And I guess 20 years go by, yeah, 20, 30 years go by, and she gets this letter, and she was thinking, okay, my daughter's trying to contact me, and it says, your daughter has been missing for the last 20 years. And she's like, what? So she's so she basically decides on her own to go on Facebook and start a page. You know, do you know this this woman? And then as it turns out, when she was in high school, she ran away. OK. Ran away. And then shit gets crazy.

Chris: All right, good. I was waiting for that. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. So she supposedly ran away. But what they end up finding is the adoptive parents weren't very good parents.

Marc: I'm just going to leave it at that. Oh, boy. All right. So she was into the fire.

Chris: Maybe literally.

Steve: So, yeah. So some some it's a pretty it's pretty interesting. But the characters are not very likable. Both the mother of and everybody involved, they're all kind of like weird characters. Well, they're real life. But yeah, I mean, it's true. But the story is actually pretty interesting.

Marc: You know, that's a documentary. Here we go. Where I don't know anything. Here we go. Yeah. I don't know anything. No. I can't predict it. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like, or I haven't watched the whole thing unfold. Right. Throughout my entire life. Right.

Steve: Yeah, it's pretty good. It is actually a little predictable. I think you'll figure it out pretty quick. The good thing is it's only two episodes. I think they're like an hour and ten minutes each. So it's a quick watch.

Chris: Alright, into the fire on Netflix. H.J. gives it a thumbs up. I moved over to Apple TV Plus and I picked up a brand new show called Disclaimer. Disclaimer? Yes, Disclaimer. Do tell. Yes, it stars Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline. Kevin Kline is that old guy you see in the picture right there. Oh yeah, I see him. I like Kevin Kline. Of Fish Called Wanda? Yes, Kevin Kline and of Dave. Remember that? The president. It also stars Leela George as a young Kate Blanchett. And let me just tell you as men, it's worth watching. Yeah. Yeah. Kate Blanchett, huh? No, Leela George. Leela George. So the premise of this, is that, uh, Kate Blanchett plays, uh, an award-winning author and journalist who wins, uh, one of Britain's highest journalism awards. It might be comparable to like the Pulitzer prize or something like that. Big award. Yeah. And, uh, then out of the blue, um, somebody writes a book Um, and oh, it also stars Sasha Baron Cohen as, as her husband.

Marc: Oh, kind of a sneaky, good, actual real actor.

Chris: He's no longer sneaky. Good. He is super good. Yeah. And he like, I, I explained to my wife while we're watching, I'm like, Oh, that's Sasha Baron Cohen. And she's like, I had no idea it was him.

Marc: Like you have no idea.

Chris: He was really good in that like Israeli spy thing. Anyway, so then all of a sudden this book comes out and it's basically an expose written about a meeting that this person had when they were younger in Italy. They met this young man And, uh, this, this married woman with a child met this young man when the husband left to go on vacation and they had this torrid affair for like two or three days. And, um, and then there was, there was a death, somebody drowned and, you know, and then there was a grieving mother. I'm trying not to give too much away, but then you're telling us everything. Not really. So this book was written and then it was presented kind of as like, this is this book is about her. So it's kind of like exposing her. I got it. And so it kind of busts up the whole family. And then there's some twists in it. And is it a one season? It's one season. Yeah, it's eight episodes. It might only it might be six or seven. I think it's like seven episodes, but I could be wrong about that. Um, but as far as I'm concerned, you know, there, there's about three episodes in there. The tour at a fair part, definitely worth watching.

Marc: Well, how about as far as saying how I know as far as the dialogue, is that worth watching?

Chris: Uh, the dialogue's great. The sex is even better.

Steve: The storyline is good.

Chris: You're a dirty old man. I am a dirty old man. I was explaining that to somebody at the, at the, I was going to say at the office, but the storyline has to be okay. No, listen, first of all, the storyline is good. The acting, Kevin Kline plays, um, an old man who's involved in the other side of it. Like, like somehow involved in the writing of the book and exposing. Okay. Disclaimer. Right. So he, he, he played a man. You don't, you hardly even realize it's Kevin Kline. I love Kevin Kline. Yeah, you hardly even realize, and I know makeup does wonders in Hollywood nowadays, and they can make people, you know, our age look like they're 80. He's just really old. But he is now, yeah, but he just fantastic.

Steve: Back in the day, he was great. You know, my favorite movie with him is, you've probably never seen this movie, Grand Canyon. Yeah, no, I've never seen that. I think I have seen it. He probably has. It is a great movie. Yeah. Highly recommend it.

Marc: Oh yeah, no, I've seen that. It's like eight different stories. Yep. Yeah, that was good.

Chris: Steve Martin's in it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so anyway, so yeah, the act, Cate Blanchett, The acting is great. Sacha Baron Cohen, it's great. The guy, the kid that plays their son, who's got his own issues, great acting, great acting all the way across the board. How much more do you want to share with us? Well, I just, I just, I wanted to get to the sexist part.

Marc: I think the timer's on like 15 minutes.

Chris: All right, fine. I know exactly what that means. All right. Disclaimer on Apple TV Plus, it is definitely worth the watch. And you have been watching something worth the watch. It's called the sports sports, the black and gold edition all over the world on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube X and Instagram. You know what I'm going to do, guys? I'm going to drop this show. I'm going to drop it into a podcast right after we're done here on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, Spotify. Or you get your frickin' broadcast. That's right, and you can always catch up with us on our website at theporcheslive.com. Theporcheslive.com. Theporcheslive.com. There you go. For the Grand Swabini to my right, for Hockey Teases, who's miraculously still alive. Thanks to Sparkling Watermelon Juice. I'm your technical director, and I am out.

SPEAKER_00: Jablonsk. Jablonsk.