The Around the NFL podcast. Once the NFL to change the name of every holiday. Welcome to another edition of Around the NFL. My name is Dan Hansis, and I have with me heroes virtually across the Southland and beyond. Greg Rosenthal, Mark Zessler. Happy day after Thanksgiving, presented by the National Football League in honor of John Madden. I don't think I have all the wording right, but probably close enough.

Happy Thanksgiving, day after, presented by John Madden. Did you, boys, enjoy the day?

Very nice. Yeah, had a great day. I noticed that the Black Friday Jets Dolphins ad that they ran came very close in tone and authority to Dan's suggestion that at some point we'll just be rolling games out on Easter Sunday. They made it clear, We now own this day.

Right. They got it. They've always had Thanksgiving, and now they have Friday, and that's coming up in a couple of hours. We're going to be watching that game, and we'll have the recap of that on the Sunday show. But for today, and it was a very nice Thanksgiving. We hosted every year at our house and it's a friends' giving, but the friends are very close, so it's like family. It's a great holiday. The one thing that the NFL really has about it is you can't imagine Thanksgiving without football and especially without that first game in Detroit with the Lions. The game, boys, that we're going to get to first, we're going to go in order that none of us expected to play it out this way. And it changed for me. A lot of my thoughts about the NFC underneath the big boys, which I don't count the lions among at this point. Let's hit it. 23-14, Packers 3-45 to go in the third. Watson to the left, snap to love, walk the left side of the end of the goal. Don't get it. Over the shoulder, catch. Touchdown, Christian Watson. Yes, they make the lions pay.

Sixteen-yard-down reception, it's 29-14. Wayne Larivie with the call for W-R-N-W. We thought we were going to hear from Dan Miller of the Lions because everything seemed set up for the Detroit in this great revitalization period to announce themselves as a dominant force and kickbutt on Thanksgiving. But it went the other way. The Packers won 29-22 and it really wasn't that close. The tone was set on a Jordan Love 53-yard pass to Christian Watson on the game's first play. Greg, we talked about it on The Wednesday preview show. They lead the league and explosives like that. They just kept taking it to the Lions, Greg, the Lions team that on top of being flatfooted to start the game, just killing themselves with the mistakes throughout the afternoon and they could not put it together.

They couldn't. I mean, on some level, it starts with Jared Goff turnovers for the second straight week, but I really think it starts back in week seven. That's when we saw the Lions play the Ravens. That was a game they were so comprehensively destroyed on every level. Did make you think, well, you can throw that out a little bit, but let's see how that goes. Since then, they've played four pretty lackluster teams, five if you want to count the Packers, although they're certainly playing better now. They're the worst defense or the second worst defense in the league, depending on what metric you want to use. They all agree. That's a five-week sample size. That's against some pretty good quarterbacks like Justin Herbert and Lamars in there, but it's also against the Raiders and Jordan Love, who is playing better and better every week, but is not a top 10 quarterback right now. And all these guys are having career days against them. I'm with you, Dan. I think they can improve, but right now it's hard to see them in the mix with the truly great NFC teams.

I don't know. If we talk about them as a playoff possibility, I think they're going to test for that number seven spot. I think yesterday, I'm with you, Dan.

Who? The Lions you think are going to test for that? I'm talking about.

The Lions here. I'm saying.

Green Bay, absolutely. I'm talking about the Lions at eight and three. I'm not putting with.

The end. You want to get a little high on that tryptophan?

No, I think the Lions, to me- Such a good one.

That's good.

To watch how their strength was their offensive line. I thought that their offensive line was one of the reasons that Jared Goff had been pristine, going back to last season in many ways. Everything's changed over the last couple of weeks. Three lost fumbles yesterday, six turnovers over the last two weeks. They're lucky they got out of that bears game with a win. In this division that seemed to be essentially just handed up to them, to my point before, I'm looking at Green Bay and thinking like, Wait a minute, they're changing before our eyes. Their quarterback is, their passing game is. I look at that game and it's like, I don't really remember Matt Lofloor having a better performance as a coach. I think no one expected that to happen the way it did. He came in with a surprising game plan. They stomped Detroit at home doing what they do well now, and it's a different Packers team than before because they're a quarterback, because of their young wide receivers. I'm not really sure what the ceiling is for the Packers at this point. They're still growing before our eyes, but they absolutely... I thought a week ago, Oh, the Vikings will take that number seven spot.

I don't know anything right now. Green Bay is unpredictable.

Well, listen, there's room for the Packers and the Vikings and the Lynx in the playoffs. The Vikings will get their game on Monday night to continue to build for them. But yeah, I think if Detroit had a more difficult schedule, if they had Seattle schedule, forNations, for instance, and we're going to get to the Seahawks a little bit later, I'd be very worried about a tail spin for this team because you've seen the Goff and the offense really stumble. This could be a slump or it could be the sign of an ugly comeback to Earth. It's probably closer to a slump. But the schedule is so soft that I think Detroit is going to be okay and get to that 11 wins. Probably 11. They feel to me like 11 and 6. That's going to be enough probably to win the division. The Packers are now a team of fascination for me because of love, mostly. You're right about LaFlor because he was taking on a lot of criticism early in the season. I think there was some sideways glances like he was being exposed now without Aaron Rogers. But instead, you look at this team now as we head toward the final stretch after Thanksgiving, and he's got Jordan Love playing at a high level for the last few weeks.

He was an excellent quarterback. That's a huge benefit or credit to an offensive-minded coach like LaFloris. He has the offense cooking. The big plays continue to be a part of things. Christian Watson is coming out of his shell. I think he's going to have a big close to the season now. I like the Packers as a team that can make the playoffs. I would not have predicted that a couple of weeks ago. I don't know, did we fork them?

I don't think we did, no.

Okay, good.

I have no recollection whatsoever of our four community. They do have the Chiefs next week, but after that, all the games are winnable. I'm with you. But even if they don't make the play, whatever happens, this season is somewhat about Jordan Love, the GM Goodicons. I think he said that I don't remember if that was at the by week or if it was after the by week of like, This is an important stretch here for Jordan Love. I think back to that Rams game, and I do think that's when it all changed. I know that the box score wasn't crazy in that game. They won 20 to three. But his decision making was really good. Then he played well again the next week against the Steelers. I remember saying at the time of the show, I thought those were his best two games of the season in a row. I know he had some nice touchdown-interception ratio early in the season. Felt a little fluky, felt a little fake to me, to be honest. He had some nice throws, but it wasn't him doing it. These last four weeks, and you saw it yesterday, was some next-level quarterback stuff.

He's a very weird quarterback. But he passes the test where if he's protected, he could obviously make some big plays. They cooked up the lions in play action. They attacked their weaknesses deep down the field, and they're not good deep down the field. But the thing I like about him is you see that sidearm angle to heath early in the game. You saw the accuracy and the touchdown to read. But if you go through his snaps on a snap-to-snap basis, he seems like a quarterback. He seems like he's making decisions. He's recognizing blitzes. He's getting the second and third reads. I think he makes some crazy throws and he's not the most accurate quarterback in the world. There's a little ups and downs, but the processing, the mentality of it all is like, Okay, this is a quarterback. If he keeps building off this, if he plays like this at all for the rest of the season, it's like, Okay, we've got year two of Jordan Love in this very affordable contract, and we at least know we're going into year two with him still as our quarterback.

Yeah. On Thursday, we noted the laundry list of injuries that the Packers had coming into this game. A lot of that play action happened without Aaron Jones in the lineup. Earlier on in the year, when Aaron Jones was lost for a long stretch of time, it really handicapped and capsized the offense. And yesterday that just was not the case. Aj Dylan did just enough for him. But the aggressive nature of what LaFlor has loved doing, I think, is very exciting for Packers fans because I don't know, about a month ago, I was like, I don't know about this Jordan Love thing. It's like, We'll see. He seems very middle of the road. And there has been tangible, visible growth, and their young wide receivers are growing along with him. The same way I felt about the stealers coming into the year with all these young weapons, and I don't think they're weapons at all across the board in Pittsburgh, is how I feel about Green Bay now. I thought yesterday was one of these games that changed the way a lot of people feel about two different teams.

On the other side, at the quarterback position, we've touched on it briefly here, but I thought Goff was terrible and he was coming off a multiple turnover game the week before. But this time the ball security was woeful. It reminded me of the late period with the Rams. He was missing throws as well. There were miscommunications with his wide receivers. They couldn't get on the same page. He was an issue for them in this game. And if Goff is not going to be his pristine self, he's been for the majority of his career with Detroit, then the defense is going to be what it is right now. That is the recipe for a lot of losses. Here's Dan Campbell on his team, Sutton's Swoon. Again, the easy thing is to get in panic mode and I know what it looks like and it wasn't good enough out there, but I'm not panicked. We got the right guys here. We know how to play. We got to clean some things.

Up and.

We'll have six to go when we get back. And the fight's on, man. I think there's going to be some cruise control. We're going to have to fight and scratch and fight and call for everything, man. We have to. That's the type of team we are. That's where we're at. All right. Any other thoughts on this game, boys?

I thought we saw a little bit from Jameson Williams, but I want to just note that one of our listeners chimed in with something I had mentioned on the Thursday show about I thought various matronly aunts around the country would take a look at Sam Leporter, who had a nice start to the game, then the thing went sideways. But I don't know if we have this tweet, Eric.

Let's hear it out loud.

This is an audio media. Okay, so another prophecy fulfilled. My aunt, while not matronly, definitely took notice of Sam Leporter during the Lions game. She's also not a football fan. They showed him, Anne Goff, in quick succession. I verified and she even parited back Leporter's name.

That.

Is a weird tweet.

It is a weird tweet, but I appreciate it.

That's that quiet storm.

I think everything about itis it?

There's a strange, but strategy- -What are you questioning whether this is real or it's a Mark bot? It's a Mark shadow account?

Or a Mark burner. Mark, did you write that?

I don't even use X myself, much less have a.

Burner account. Come on, Kaiser. Tell us the truth.

I just saw it this morning and it caught my eye that I think it's just matching up the aunt archetype individual with Sam Leporter as a physical being.

He is... He's a young beefy young guy, a young grunk of better looking grunk.

Wait, was your prediction that he was hot and the aunt would take notice? I thought that he would have a massive game.

No, it was more that the aunt who's not football enthused would be in the room and just notice him, the physical specimen.

Anything else? Yeah, you mentioned the O-Line. There's a weird almost analytics off about how good this O-line actually is because everyone thinks it's one of the best lines in the league. It's certainly... Like PFF, for instance, grades it as one of the elite lines in the league. Pass-rush win rate, run-block win rate, not so great. Certainly, the eyeball test the last couple of weeks, not so great. Jared Goff, more than any quarterback in the NFL, is impacted by pressure and just turns into a totally different dude. They've had a couple of injuries and Vitae is not coming back, I don't believe. It's interesting because I think the whole idea with Campbell was we're going to be great on the lines. Their D-line with Hutchinson and McNeal, even though those two players are both good, they're bad. Now they just don't get enough pressure. Their cornerbacks, they're bad. That's a bad combo. Not enough pressure and bad cornerback. On one side, you got some issues. On the other side, if the line starts creaking, then you're right, Dan. But I'm not panicking. In both of these games, even in a bad game, they still get like 464 yards.

They're going to move the ball. There was some.

Garbage lipstick on the pig there late.

Too, Graham. Absolutely, but they were moving the ball when they're not turning it over seven times in the last two weeks or whatever. All I'm saying is they're going to be getting first downs. They are a nasty running team. I'm not too worried about them there. But the defense is legit bad. If they're the home team, and it's all about... We're a ways away from the playoffs, but they are the team, the five or the Six Seed might want to be playing here in the playoffs because you could put up a 40 burger.

If I'm a Detroit fan, I'm not letting it be known. I'm a little bit nervous right now.

That's all. A degree. A little bit.

Analytics off, Greg, you said. That sounds like the worst time ever. By the way, I did last night watched the Barry Sanders dock on Amazon and reminded you of his greatness and also the struggles of being a Lions fan, especially from the perspective of Eminem, Jeff Bridges, and Tim Tooltime Allen. I don't know why there's that documentary is always at the back, We need to get these celebrity sports fans in. Tim Allen was in this documentary for maybe two lines.

I watched the first hour maybe so far. I was waiting for Walker to get back on whatever night that was. He went to the Lakers game with a friend. I did not see Tim Allen. I haven't gotten quite to the end. But I thought when Jeff Bridges said he identified with Barry-That.

Was.

Incredible. -i loved it. That Barry was just a man, and the life, the juice, it's all from when the whistle blows to when the whistle stops. Anything other than that, he doesn't need. Just like Jeff Bridges, there's a certain type of actor. When they call Cut to when they call cut. Bye-bye. That's when it matters. Other than that, it's nothing.

-yeah, the parallel is striking. -yeah, the parallel is striking.

It is crazy to watch Barry Sanders now and those clips don't age at all. You're like, Oh, yeah, that would still be by far the best right back in the League.

It's crazy. My Barry Sanders story, which I think I've shared on the show, and I was hoping he was going to make it into the doc, but nobody contacted me, is when our old boss, Justin Hathaway, Mark, worked us 80 hours for that first Super Bowl in Indianapolis, Giants Pass Two. He had me cover the flag football, a celebrity flag football game. Barry Sanders is on the game. He was on one of the teams and was not involved with the offense. They were running the offense through Maria Minunoz. Barry Sanders is there and nobody's even talking to him. I'm like, That's maybe the greatest running back who ever lived.

That's an odd approach to offense. It feels like a Chip Kelly invention.

All right, good stuff. The Packers, by the way, thank you to Eric Roberts, 17 players were on the injured list in that game as well. They had no business going there and bullying the lines in that spot. Interesting. All right, let's move to the middle game. By the way, we did Fork the Panthers, Pats, Broncos, Bear's, Cardinals. Then I belatedly, and my apologies, I Fork the giants. Those are the Fork teams. Maybe we'll revisit it in the upcoming week.

Broncos, making a sweat. Yeah, a little bit?

A little tough. All right, let's head to Big D, where the Cowboys were not in the mood for any type of competitive contest. Second and 10 as a Dallas 43, Howles back, throws it in the back. Oh, my God. Picked up. It's Blaine. It's Blaine. Again. He's got one of the men of the 20. He cuts left. He breaks the tack of it to the table. Stop it. He did it again. The whole defense is going to put Blaine in the kettle. That is unbelievable. That's the most pick sixes in one season in NFL history. Five touchdowns. Where did you come from? Great call. What youIf you watch on YouTube, you could see it, or if you watched the live yesterday, Dan Quinn up in the booth, the DC, the Cowboys going absolutely rape shit, celebrating Daron Blaine setting the NFL record for Picks Sixes in the season. I mean, his fifth, the fifth of the season. Kyle Pits has four career touchdowns in his whole NFL career. Daron Blaine is a cornerback. He's got five pick sixes this year. Unbelievable. And that was just the little stamp at the end of the game because the Cowboys offense absolutely obliterated the commanders.

Got their DC fired. We're going to talk about it, 45-10 from Jerold World. This was, Mark, a total celebration of the Cowboys, the brand, and their standing as one of the very elite teams in the NFL.

It was. I've been critical of the Cowboy experience over the years, but not in this version of what we saw because they have been doing this at home all year long. They are 5-0 at home and have outscored opponents 205 points to 60 in those five wins. That's insane. But it is not nearly as insane as what Daron Bland has done. It's like, C. D. Lamb has six touchdowns, and he's a superstar. The degree of difficulty of what Daron Bland has done is wild to me. These aren't picked off at the goal line like what we saw in the Seahawks-Niners game, that's a 63-yard return. It's done it over and over. There are certain football records that we can argue matter or don't matter. This matters because he's helping the team win. He's pouring on points at the end of the game. It's the thing for me that it's like, I don't know if we'll ever see this again. This could be the thing where you could go 50 years or for us, we're not going to be here for maybe 50 more years. You never know. It could be a long time before anyone touches this because it's such a confluence of insane things happening.

It's not just being in the right place at the right time, but you also have to be the athlete to do what he's done. On that return, how easy would it have been? A 13-year-old return, you get clipped, you're down at the ground. It's just magical. I know that it completely electrified that stadium, their owner, the whole thing.

Well, are you saying I'm not going to live to '94?

I did not guarantee that, Greg. You're doubting me?

Well, the doubt.

Is just not, Greg. I'm so much older than you, Greg, that according to the two of you that I was more suggesting perhaps I won't see that record broken. -you'll be.

Triple digits. -you'll be triple digits. If you make it, you'll be triple digits. That is pretty wild.

That would be wild. That's a long time from now.

This cowboys team does feel different. Now, could they lose in the second round of the play? Of course they could because I don't think they're a step apart from these other teams. But they do have everything they need right now. The most important thing is just that dot down the field. He'she's so comfortable. I know he gets over excited, but I don't think he says things like, This might be the best offensive line in the league right now, especially in terms of pass protection, willy-nilly. They are just plain outstanding upfront. Now, everyone looks out standing up front against this commander's pass. It doesn't exist. But he's throwing the ball deep down the field. That's 18 vertical throws for a touchdown this year, according to Next Gen stats, way more than any other player. 14 of those are in the last six weeks. This is a bombs away offense. I thought these last couple of weeks, it's almost like they're working on things that they'll need in bigger games. They got Gallup and Cooke's involved last week. Then this week, I thought, Pollard ran really well. I know it was only 13 carries. But from quarter one, quarter two, when it mattered, they were consistently running the ball.

That was excellent. It was actually not a game they were dominating in total yardage through three quarters or anything, but they were getting everything they wanted to done. I think 15 of their first 26 plays were first downs.

I mean, that's just stupid. This was in many ways the ultimate Cowboys game, at least in terms of the regular season. The game on Thanksgiving with the Salvation Army Red Kettle out for the first time. You have a blowout of a hated rival. You have Daron Blaine making history. You have Dack once again saying, I am a very real MVP candidate. You had a certain celebrity that I'll get to in a moment at half time. Jarrett Jones was over the moon with this one. This is a surreal day. I wouldn't even dare as much as I imagine or as big as I might dream or think.

I.

Couldn't have drawn a.

Day like today. I couldn't have imagined it. It really covered a lot of ground. Don't you get the feeling that just the atmosphere? And maybe Jane Slater would be the best person to ask this question to. But when things are going well for the Cowboys, it just seems everyone, when you see those group interviews and stuff around Jerry, everything is good. Everybody's in a good mood. The Cowboys are kicking butt and spirits are high. If Jerry's spirits are high, you can tell that whole vibe around that team is glowing, and that's certainly where it is right now.

I'm totally with you. I think he's really well liked. I'll never forget actually being in Dallas a number of Thanksgivings ago. That's like 2000, Drew Bledsoe era, and went with my uncle and cousins to the Cowboys game. I watched Jerry Jones before kickoff individually shake hands with, I would say, roughly 400 people. He took that time. It is his baby. It's his thing. We've always known that. I've always felt like there's always an air of hyperbole to anything he says about the team. But in this case, this season, and yesterday, I did not feel that. I think it was like, This is a different Cowboys team to me than one that we've experienced together on this show.

He was quoted as part of that Scrum is saying, I'll put some Super Bulls in there. I don't know if I've ever had a better day with the Cowboys than today. That's all about Thanksgiving. I believe that he believes that in the moment, he's saying that in the moment, Thanksgiving is the ultimate Cowboys' holiday celebration. Wes and I love this book, Billy Foughton's Long Half-Time Walk, which is a great book about the NFL and military service and football. It's set on Thanksgiving at these games. There's something so American for good and bad about all this. The Cowboys putting a bang thing on the commanders is.

Like-i'm sorry, what's bad about it? Out of curiosity.

Well, read the book. I would say some of the ways...

I was talking about just yesterday.

Okay, the book, I'm sure there's a lot more. Nothing bad yesterday. Just the over the top, the way they use the... It was written from the perspective of a military guy.

I'd be one thing I was bad. Greg is very well-known for putting myself in line on this, the celebration of people being fired from their jobs because the Cowboys decimated the Washington defense to the point that the new owner of the team, Josh Harris, fired defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio after the game. They also parted ways with defensive backs coach Brent Wieselmaier. Tough Friday here is a missive from the new owner of the Commanders, we haven't heard from him obviously a lot, he just succeeded Daniel Snyder a couple of months ago. I feel exactly how our fans feel today. Disappointed and frustrated. It's how our players and staff feel as well. I knew our first season of ownership would include challenges along the way, and we will not shy away from hard work, nor will we be deterred by adversity. As Coach Rivera and I discussed, all of our energy for the remainder of the season will be focused on playing better, more consistent football, and developing our players while intently evaluating the areas in which we need to improve this offseason. Our fans deserve a team that can compete with the NFL best and win sustainably over the long term.

I will not waver from that mission. Okay, so strong words there from the new owner. It did make me think when I heard this morning, guys, that we talked about a couple of weeks ago that the setting and environment in the League right now is very, very ripe for mass dismissals at the end of the year, head coaches in danger. What do head coaches in dangers do when there's an issue? You start firing your assistants and you start reshuffling the deck. I feel like we're seeing a lot of that the last week or so and now Washington is doing it as well. But I just think it's a little unfair to Candell Rio and the defensive backs coach when you just traded away your two most impact players on the defensive line, two of your most impactful players. What did you expect in this setting? Honestly, I guess you could have been more competitive, but still.

I think it's warranted only because this defense has been... And it's Ron Rivera's defense. It's a weird move because Ron Rivera is almost certainly going to get fired at the end of the year. It's almost a move that signals to me, Look, we want Ron Rivera to land this thing, but we want to show our fans we want to do something now, and we're not going to fire Rivera until the end of the season, maybe week 18, whatever it is. But this is a really poorly coached defense. I thought Del Rio was an uninspired hired to begin with. He lasted a while. No team has more coverage busts over the last four years than Del Rio. They're either really awesome or they're terrible. There's nothing in between. There was a scout that works, I think, for cowboys. Com, Brian Brodus, who pointed out on the Cooks touchdown, they've run that route a lot all season. But the only team that fell for it, like a banana in the tailpipe and played it so poorly all year was Washington and they had to walk and touch them.

Yeah, they were 32nd and DVO. It's weird because under Del Rio, they were seventh last year, 27th the year before that, and fourth. They've been all over the map. I'm with you, Dan, in the sense that I just think it was more of a statement move or a try. What you just read, it's like a signal to the fans. We're not just sitting, Pat. We see what you see. We're as frustrated as you are. Part of me wonders that maybe Ron Rivera is allowed to land the as you said, Greg, but I do wonder if maybe this would be an opportunity if you want to go interim to see what Eric Bionomy could do for a stretch of time here.

I think this really signaled we're not going to do that. You know what I mean? Today would have been the day to do it. But I could.

Be wrong. I guess the problem there then he'll get swept out too potentially. I thought he's done a good job.

I thought he's still getting passed over.

Yep, right.

By the way, let's give it up. Mike McCarthy. Come on now. He's got this team humming.

He does.

Number one, Kelly Moore left in the off-season? Everybody with their little jabs like, Oh, he's going to run the offense? How imagine the Texas Coast offense is humming. Okay.

I mean.

You're right. Finally.

You're right. I like, by the way, they've set up a really nice stretch run. Now, they'll be heavy favorites over the Seahawks, but it's still an interesting game. Then Eagles, Bulls, Dolphins, Lions, really fun stretch run. We got a lot of actually... I looked at all these contenders schedules. There's a lot of good regular-season games left to schedule makers did a nice job.

Nicely done, Greg. Finally, I thought the best part of this middle game, because it wasn't overly competitive, as you could see, was Tony Romo just basically losing control of his emotions when talking about Dolly Parton's half-time performance while wearing a Cowboy's cheerleader uniform. She's like 80 years old. It's very impressive, Dolly, and she's a national treasure, and we love her. But nobody loves her more like Tony Romo. Please, watch this or listen. You could hear Jim Nance getting increasingly concerned as Tony can't move off the idea of Dolly Parton in the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders uniform. Field is all set after the Dolly performance. We are the champions. She was wearing the Cowboys cheerleading outfit. You saw that coming, didn't she? You said, I think she's going to go with a little cheerleading outfit tonight. I was like, Wow, it's pretty good. What do you think? We're going to see. I mean, she looks amazing. You never know what's going to happen here. She's wonderful. Who doesn't like Dolly Parton? No, she's absolutely an American to treasure, that's for sure. And you are, too, fast becoming. There's your look at the quarterback comparison.

I've got another take on Dolly that might even top this from our old friend on the show, Mary Kaye, Cabot. She's actually over indexed mentions. Here was a tweet from Mary Kay Cabot yesterday on Dolly. Sitting on the couch watching some football like a big stuffed turkey, and then Dolly happened. Hopped on the treadmill, booked a consultation for implants and reassessed my life's goal. Lf, let's eff and go. Mary Kay Cabot, feeling no pain on Thanksgiving out of it.

No, feeling good. Feeling real good.

That is unlike any other Mary Kay Cabot tweet ever.

It's amazing. The glow in Romo's face is really what takes it to the next level. He's not ready to get back to being an analyst at that point.

Nancy tried so hard to get out of that.

Nance desperately trying to pivot. But you know what? Everybody's got to stop clutching their pearls. And you know what? Tony's right. That was incredible. Dolly Parton, if you want to do some... I didn't really know Dolly that well, other than how everyone else knows her. But my wife loves Dolly Parton. And she is an incredible humanitarian and the amount of charity she does, in addition to being obviously a very talented actress and singer and all that. See now I'm romoing out to her.

No, I think it's appropriate. You've done a nice job and we didn't try to sidetrack you out for that.

All right, let's take a break. Just talk a little more Dolly off mic. Then when we come back, we'll hit the prime time game. All right, we are back. Mark Cessler in the VTech.

There is one other Cowboys note. I don't know about you guys. But this is more of a parabolic mic item, I think, depending on game to game. It's an island game in the middle of the day. Doc Prescott's presynapt cadence. Can we just play this, producer Eric, please? Producer Eric.

Yeah, there we go.

Did you not hear this?

I had a tear of the mark.

I heard this like- Do you want it one more time?

Yeah, here we go. It was like 347 times this played during the game yesterday, and it just seemed to get louder and louder. I don't know, is it to tell as a presnapp cadence? I love how he says it. It doesn't sound like a human almost.

Well, it's his Green 18. Green 18. It's his thing. He's been going hard at it now for month-plus, I would say. Yeah, here we go. Yeah, here we go. I love it. I'm just saying that sometimes just in my everyday life. Just, Yeah, here we go. I think it's a nice way to just set off a conversation. It's like.

When Cree'd rips into My Sacrifice in the encore and then half the audience does this. Yeah, here we go.

I feel like if some of these quarterbacks, they know what we're going to talk about it. Do they lean in from an inflection or vocal point on some level to make it a little even more absurd than it needs to be? I think we all know what he's trying to say.

Well, I got to tell you this, Mark, I haven't released my top five Cadence rankings for the season. It's an annual event people really look forward to. But between his voice, how strong his pipes are, and the unique nature of, Yeah, here we go. I mean, he's a strong favorite for number one this year.

Yeah, here we go. I'm going to go with you with MVP talk. It's too early to talk about the Cadence rankings yet. You're not allowed to.

Please, my brother. By the way, it's not too early anymore. My point now is that whatever's happened to this point almost doesn't matter. It's still going to be moving forward. Dax started it yesterday. That was a nice one because everyone's watching that game. It's the.

Most watched game of the year. As opposed to the other Cowboys games that nobody.

Was watching. Right, nobody watched any of those. Speaking of which, as good as ShamGod did with that call, we were talking to- Right, Sham to ShamGod? We were talking to Nance and Romo. What a job by Jim Nance on the Daron Bland call there. I loved seeing Nance getting excited in a big spot. Let's hear it.

Second and 10. There it is. This is history. If Blaine could take it to the distance, this would be the record. Blaine for the fifth time has a pick six. It's never happened in the history of the NFL. And what a call by you. You got me with goosebumps, Nance. That was unbelievable. Excellent. You're right. Excellent call by Nance, who's a Hall of Fame broadcaster. It's also a very Romo move to his first analysis is on the call by Jim Nance.

I wish he didn't do that.

No, he didn't need to do that. But I think that's part of the give and take with Romo. He justhis exuberance, he just says what's on his mind, like the Dolly Parton situation from minutes ago. All right, let's get to the final game. This one was also a one-sided affair. For first and goal, eight-yard lines left toss to McCartney coming left, stacked up, stays patient, squirts through and takes it all the way down to the goal line. Touchdown! Cmc, what a run that was! Cmc, T, C-B. A slow fuse on that one because there was nowhere to go. Mcafrey taking care of business. Man, they love the acronyms over there. Greg Papa and Tim Ryan with the call. Awesome. Awesome performance by Christian McAfrey, who if now Greg has dined that we're allowed to talk about the MVP race, man, where is he in the conversation? Producer Eric, as Mark referred to you earlier. I call you human Eric.

Just Eric.

Is good. Can you see, Bud, where Christian McAfrey is in the Vegas MVP odds? Because he deserves to be there. He ran for a buck 14 and two scores in the first half, putting the 49ers ahead, and they cruised to a 31-13 win over the fading Seattle Seahawks, who are in a lot of trouble, Greggie. The 9ers did what they wanted on offense and even the Seahawks touchdown came on a pick six. This is dominance on both sides.

It couldn't be one more one-sided. I think has a lot of soul-searching going on in Seattle. But let's talk about the team that matters the most here first, and that's the 49ers. Watching this game, it occurred to me like Kyle Shanahans' 49er system, essentially. This offense has now been there for seven years. It's been in a NFL where a lot of things change. This has been an awesome offense that's brilliantly constructed and playcalled for a while now. It's been a great run. To me, this is the best one. It's the best one because of Purdy, first of all, because he elevates their offense in a way that Jimmy G and certainly any of the other backups never did. Then because they're healthy, which they often aren't, right now they are healthy, and that's when they weren't winning games a couple of weeks ago, that was a big part of it. But also because these guys have been there now for a while outside of Purdy, Debo, and Ayuk, and Kiddle, and Trent Williams, and even a lot of the lines been there for a while. It's all just coming together. They've been so close every year.

I'm not saying they couldn't be close in another year, but man, you look at this. Shanohand thing. It just feels like, man, this is the time. This is the team. This is the time. This is the team. This is the team to do it.

Yep, I absolutely feel the same way. It is so key that they stay healthy. When all five of their offensive stars have been on the field together for full games. They've been undefeated. That shouldn't change. They're so dominant. I think it really mattered last night to see that you got Debo Samuel as the core element again. He's such a change agent. But we talk about the offense as we should, but their defense is an absolute destroyer. What they did last night, at one point in the first half, the Niners had 16 first downs and the Seahawks had run 18 plays and it never really got better for Seattle. The same way that the first game changed the way we thought about Detroit and Green Bay, I'm looking at a Seattle schedule where you got to go to Dallas, you've got the Niners and then the Eagles. I don't know. It feels like curtains to me and as ebullient as Pete Carroll is at all times, I thought the look on his face at the end of that game spoke volumes. I think they're in a bit of a dark corner that will be hard to escape from.

Now here are the MVP odds, by the way. Jaylen at plus 250.

What?

This is from DraftKings. Lamar, plus 350. Mohom, plus 4.25. Toa, plus 5.50. Daq, plus 8.50. Cmc, plus 1,600. These are.

So annoying. Come on, bro. I think you.

Have 16 touchdowns.

Why is Jaylen hurts the favorite? Daq was plus 3,000 a couple of weeks ago. If you cut on at any time, I think that's still value. Where is Tyree Kill, who's literally my vote right now.

Greg, nobody likes Tiree Kill. I think that factors in.

That's just positional bias against.

Mccaffrey, though. Yeah, I don't think that factors it. He's plus 4,000. I don't think that factors into the draft king odds. But I hear you. I hear you as number 10 right now.

He has some rough stuff in his personal history. Let's see. Let's get back to it. Yes, McAfrey, I believe he's got 16 touchdowns this year. He's dominant. Brock Purdy, statistically not his best game. He threw that PIC 6 I mentioned that briefly made the game somewhat interesting in the third quarter, but also put a stamp on the game and put the game away with a beautiful throw to Brandon and Ayouk in zone coverage. Shannon Hinn, after the game, made a point to really pump up Purdy in that spot. He said, That is a play where we have something underneath, a little check down that could have went for 12 yards. When he decides to put it over the middle on a line from about 30 yards out, that is a high-level throw. I think it gets to, Mark, what we were talking about on Wednesday about Purdy and the season he's having and we act like he's this little boy that was plucked out of obscurity. That's a high-level football throw. Yeah, he might not have the arm talent of those other quarterbacks we mentioned just now, but he's got enough to make it happen when he's pulling the trigger and using his instincts for good.

Yeah, I love that you brought up that throw because I think that's an argument in favor of the fact that this quarterback has elevated the play of Brandon and Ayuk. Brandon and Ayuk was for multiple years in a row talked about, This will be the year he totally breaks out and becomes a start. It has a lot to do with him, but it has a lot to do with Purdy as well. Their connection has been essentially flawless for weeks on end. That throw was not the throw that a mid-tier quarterback that we do want to write off as a system guy makes. I look at those MVP odds and it's like, Where is Purdy? To be honest. I find that to be slightly absurd that he's not in the top five, top six of that list, if not higher. I think it's just we're looking at a perception problem when it comes to Brock Purdy in this offense.

Here's the thing. If they get the one seed, I'm not ruling them out of that, he's got a chance. It's stupid the fact that Jaylen's plus 250 because that's just like they have the one seed. I just love the way they started this game. I think of NBA teams, you talk about two-man games a lot, just like the two stars playing off each other. Port Zingus and Jaylen Brown right now, beautiful two-man game. They got a two-man game going with the Debo and CMC, where they're just using them interchangeably and matching them up. The Seahawks defense had no freaking clue what to do the first couple of drives of that game. Shanehan just owns this matchup. He owns Pete Carroll, who's a defensive coach when the 49ers have the ball. The way they use those two guys is pretty beautiful.

It's funny, and that's obviously credit to Kyle Shanehan, the offensive mastermind. I like this thing that's going on this year. I feel like there's been an uptick in it this year of just shots to Mike Shanehan, Kyle's father, sitting stonefaced in the stands with that shock of white hair. A lot of younger fans don't even know that Mike Shanehan, Kyle Shannon, is who he is in large part because of Mike Shannonhan, who was a genius in his own right and won multiple Super Bowles. Now Kyle has taken the league over and is that dude. Seattle, you're right, had no answers. It looked like Rick Wallen got benched in this game. Although, Carroll downplayed afterwards. I mean, he was benched. He missed tackles. Carroll said after the game that he had a bad shoulder, but he was playing special teams after they took him out of the game for Michael Jackson. You talked about Rick Wallen was one of the best young additions to the league last year. Now he's on the bench on the offensive side of the ball. Obviously, Gino Smith is dealing with the arm injury, but this offense just is not humming anymore, Greg.

If Gino is not physically right, and we'll have to see, he played that game with a big knot on his throwing elbow, maybe it is that time to have a Drewlock conversation. But at the same time, nobody was pumping the brakes on the Drew Block experience harder than me a couple of years back in Denver. It's not necessarily a great second option, but the offense has hit a rut. There's notell me a lot about it.

They're disappointing. Everything about this team is disappointing. They're six and five. What you said about the Packers and the Vikings can get in is in large part because the Seahawks can fall right out of this thing. Think about these two games against the Ravens where this game and the Ravens game where absolutely Gino didn't Excel. He's not going to be able to elevate things going really wrong around him. But find a spot in this team that's not getting blasted. They spent their whole offseason building up this defensive line completely changing it, spending tons of money, draft picks. They got young guys coming like Jerry Mount Jones. They trade for Leonard-Williams. They get blown off the ball. They can't tackle anyone in CMC. Their defensive rookie of the year, Tariq Willen, is getting benched. Their linebackers are slow. D. K. Metcalf is having one of the worst seasons for a Superstar-wide receiver. The guy can't make a catch. I was.

Going to... I'm telling you, I'm pulling him out of the club, I think, Greg. I had him in the club.

I think he's got to go. I think so. He's killing my guy, Gino. Gino is not great, but two drops that killed drives. Then when it's 14 to three and you're trying to change the game and that could have been a touchdown or at least a 50 yard play down the field, and DK just drifts and drifts. Trust me, Seahawks fans have been losing their mind over DK's play in this game. Then their line stunks in this game. Most of those sacks were quick sacks. I just don't see what they're good at. Maybe they're average enough to win nine games again, but man, it's pretty disappointing. It's very disappointing.

This is also one matchup that they cannot solve. I think last year on Thursday night, Charvarious Ward versus DK Metcalfe was physical and it went both ways. Last night, he was just taken out of the game, DK Metcalfe. Then you got nowhere to go.

I'll give the final word to Christian McAfrey, who deserves to be way better than plus 6,000 because he has been.

The one- 1,600, buddy, by the way, 1,600 just for accuracy. 6,000. Thank you. That's important. And Purdy's plus 3,000 number eight. He's in the mix, but not really.

Rediculous. One of the things I like about the writeups by the AP and others on Thanksgiving is just like a lot of turkey talk. It's just like turkey talk slips in there. I want to hear this quote from McAfrey because I'm reading it and I'm like, Man, this guy is really going into detail about this turkey. It's slotted in between two beefy graphs about the statistics about this win. Then you have, All right, I'm going to drop in the CMC quote here. The guy just going on and on about the turkey. That was awesome. It was actually really good turkey too. I have no idea how they kept all of the dishes were hot. I was bummed I didn't get the sweet potato with the Marshmallows that I didn't... I don't know if they had the...

They had.

A fork, but then we had to pick the turkey leg up. By that time, I was eating the turkey. But the turkey was really.

Good, well-cooked, it wasn't dry at all. Like I said, still hot, which was impressive.

For being 20.

Minutes after the game. I don't know where they kept it, but.

It was good turkey. Somebody gives CMC an update how they kept the turkey warm. What did they use? Was it an oven kept on low? Was it just covered and kept maybe in a microwave with the microwave off? How did they keep it? Was there one of those burners underneath? But they were very careful not to have the burner turned up too high. You know what I'm talking about? Those things. I don't know.

They got to have a kitchen somewhere in the bowels of that stadium. But I was thinking as we're listening that, man, I've rarely heard CMC talk at length. Maybe that's why he just gets super nerdy about turkeys.

He was spinning.

Out there.

That actually was a quote from July. I mean, the guy, it's all he talks about. I got to.

Say, I watched this game with friends and their families and a lot of kids were there and no moment all day popped to them like George Kiddell throwing that turkey leg up into the crowd and running turkeys afterwards. That was huge in the 10-year-old set. They were talking about they wanted to throw some turkeys. It was just like that pop. That was a nice moment for Kiddel to really break through.

By that moment in my house, and I still have a family here that stayed the night, the Princess Bride had been turned on by that moment.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. You skipped... We had a late.

We had a late. As you wish. Anything else?

No.

All right, I'm going to go play football with some kids now.

Really?

Yeah. Dan, I hope.

You will dominate then. That sounds like a good spot for you to really shine athleticall.

Yesterday, we played also, and it was tough because I had to be... We used to call it automatic QB. But I think my son corrected me and said now that they call it all QB or something. But anyway, we had an uneven number, so I played QB. It was tough when you're automatic QB on both sides because it's like Barry Sanders in that flag football game. I'm trying to destroy attribute to all these kids. There's so many mouths to feed and nobody's happy at the end of the game. You can't win as automatic QB because everyone thinks they should have been targeted more. Here I am. I've completed probably about 60 or 70% of my passes and half the kids can't even catch. That's pretty high percentage. After the game, I'm being told that I was leaving people out of the game plan. We got another game about to play. Now we have even number because some people went home. I'm going to be playing defense and I'm going to be very physical and I'm going to send messages to those who complained about my quarterback play, specifically my eldest son, Jack, who thought that I cost him the game yesterday by not throwing it to him literally every time.

There's a lot going on here. Don't get mad, get even. I'm going to be hitting like... Who's our friend? Kareem Jackson?

Yeah.

I'm hitting like Jackson in this game.

Okay. I wish I was there. I'd not to sound like Cessler when he plays tennis with his family, but we played a little football too yesterday. I almost thought I was dominating the game so much that I had to back off and not be as show-off-y with what was going on. Like you said, distribute it around. But the explosive niffs was absolutely there. I was very proud of my son, though, to finish the game. Had a key Charvarious Ward pass-breakup on me. In a big spot, I ultimately didn't come through for the team. He knocked that thing out of my hands like Charvarious Ward.

That's good. We've played with Walker in the past and you've seen those innate DB skills. I'm not surprised to hear that update.

I like to keep my sons in games where I'm involved, but very rarely do they get the W. That's the way I was raised as well. My dad in one-on-one basketball took me into... I was a sophomore in high school to finally beat him. He did this back down move in the post where he would back me down. Then he'd use his left arm as a clear out and do a little jump hook. It was total BS. I would tell him that, and I actually told him that last week because we were reminiscing about it. When I finally beat him, it was all the more rewarding and it was a changing of the guard, athleticall within the family dynamic. That's what the boys are doing to me. He hasn't recovered, frankly. -that's what I want the boys to do to me.

He still talks about that.

When they beat me, they'll beat me. That will be a moment, or they'll never beat me, perhaps as well. Now I'm like Barry Sanders's monster of a dad.

No, that's good dad work. I'm a tennis court. I keep the foot on the gas, though, I'll tell you that much.

I know you do, buddy. Never forget that Barry Sanders's dad, on the day that Barry ran for 2,000 yards in 1997, when the first thing... Excuse me, not the 2,000 yard. When he went to the Hall of Fame, Barry Sanders's dad, for Sanders's induction and gave the speech, the first thing he said was that Jim Brown was the greatest running back of all time. Then he said that his son was the third greatest running back of all time. Everybody was like, What did he mean? Who's the second? He called himself the second. He was the greatest running back of all time. Imagine. Now that's taking it to an extreme.

Yes.

His dad was a handyman.

Right. He literally did not play professional football.

Anyway, be nice to your kids. Just one day they'll have to take care of you. All right. Happy Thanksgiving weekend, everybody. Enjoy it. We'll be back on Sunday with the full recap of both the Black Friday, Jets Dolphins affair, Can't wait. Everything on Sunday. Until then, you know what you got to do. Be the car.