00:00Were you able to get out at all over the holidays?
00:03I got out, but honestly, Fred, talk about a holiday gift.
00:08How great is this?
00:10Sunday night, playoff football, Chargers coming to town.
00:14After everything the last couple years, I think I'm just so appreciative
00:20of what we're talking about right now.
00:22To me, that's the greatest holiday gift of all.
00:25Oh, so you're very excited about the Sunday night game.
00:29Well, I don't love the primetime games, but I love playoff football.
00:33And, man, Fred, we had two decades of it, and at the highest level,
00:38and then after everything the last couple years,
00:40maybe just a new appreciation from me to be able to be there reporting on it.
00:48Yeah, I mean, and again, it's going to be considered just taken for granted,
00:54but I don't think anyone's taking it for granted,
00:56especially when you think back to the conversations we're having,
01:00not just about the record, but I think people would have been happy
01:04just to be playing some meaningful football in the month of December.
01:09And, you know, we got past that, you know, pretty quickly.
01:13And now, like you say, Mike, to have this spot on a Monday night
01:18and the number two seed, it's, you shouldn't take it for granted.
01:22You know, you should take it just a moment at least for a day or two this week
01:26before you just immediately move on and start breaking down the Chargers.
01:30Hardy, Hardy, two things.
01:31I mean, the first is what Mike Vrabel and this program staff,
01:36whatever you want to call it, have accomplished.
01:38We've never seen really anything like it.
01:41He's just the third first-year head coach to lead a team, the 14 wins.
01:47Jim Caldwell with the Colts, George Seifert with the 49ers are the other two.
01:53That's the first thought.
01:54And then the other thought for me, just, you know,
01:57when the Patriots had it rolling under Bill Belichick,
02:00like, it was like a symphony and it was the organization
02:06and it felt like a train that was never going to stop.
02:09And I think for me, the last couple of years,
02:11you see how when it gets off the tracks,
02:15it's hard to get it back on, you know?
02:19And I think just everything that happened from this point last year to now,
02:24you know, Robert Kraft making the decision to hire Vrabel,
02:27Vrabel coming in with sort of a vision of how he wanted to do it.
02:31And I just can't, I got to make a list of every decision
02:34that Vrabel has made from that time to now.
02:38And man, his hit rate, that's ridiculous hit rate.
02:43Like, and like one example, Ramondre Stevenson,
02:46think about what all of us were talking about in week after week three.
02:50Do they cut him?
02:51How do you go forward with all the fumbles?
02:53And then to see what Stevenson did yesterday,
02:56it's just like one of many examples to me of Vrabel on a heater.
03:01So that leads me to my question, Mike, how much of this is luck?
03:06What percentage of this is luck?
03:07Because you're right, Vrabel is hit on a ton.
03:10Haven't been many misses this season.
03:12From Will Campbell to Jared Wilson slotting in at left guard
03:16to the defense being vastly improved
03:19to Drake making an incredible leap.
03:21It just seems like every decision that Vrabel in the front office made
03:25went in their favor.
03:27And as you said that, John, the first thing that came to my mind is
03:31the greatest luck of all is that no one hired Mike Vrabel
03:36in the hiring cycle of 2024.
03:39That he was available for everyone after being fired by the Titans.
03:44And before we start on anything that you just mentioned,
03:49to me, when I think back to it, I'm like, I can't imagine.
03:53I'm like, what would it be like if that didn't happen?
03:56That's sort of where my mind is right now on that.
03:58The mind, let's not.
04:00It's almost unbearable.
04:02Why, Fred?
04:03What did I do?
04:04What did I say?
04:05Well, you're just bringing up such,
04:06I don't like to think negative things like that.
04:08It's just, don't even put that in the, in the, put that out there.
04:15It's too much.
04:15All right.
04:16All right.
04:16I'll take it back.
Comments