- 1 day ago
Seth and Sean assess Lopez's take that the AFC title game was embarrassing for the NFL because the weather was the great equalizer. Is this a real issue even? What could even "fix" it?
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00:00this is john lopez yesterday at the beginning of in the loop he was he was not a fan of
00:06the afc title game at least the last quarter and a half of it when it was played in a blizzard
00:12i thought yesterday was a complete embarrassment for the nfl i mean a complete go ahead go ahead
00:18i really did you we especially once we're watching the nfc championship game two teams play a high
00:26level in good conditions able to do anything they want truly testing each other after two regular
00:32season meetings not being hindered by anything other than their own uh greatness or or mistakes
00:38or whatever it may be uh making plays all that and then we got this crap that we just watched
00:43in the afc championship game that was an abomination it wasn't a it wasn't a true do you know in your
00:50heart that new england is truly the better team because i don't honestly jared still don't play
00:56better than i would have imagined right i think if it was uh clear conditions i think he probably
01:03could have won that game do you think do you think in your heart of hearts forget what you saw
01:08and everything else do you think new england was the better team i mean probably but i can't say
01:13with it with all i think denver was the better team i'm really talking about the blizzard uh in the
01:18second half sure uh because to me that that's the embarrassment i mean you go 18 games and then
01:23you get it 18 weeks and then you go into the playoffs and you decide it with that crap they
01:28couldn't even see going in one direction on the league exactly on the league say it with me now
01:33they were talking about it after the game they said when we were trying to run pass routes
01:37in one direction you had to close your eyes you had to squint and you couldn't see any defensive
01:42play well what do you think the quarterback that's how you decide the super bowl berth
01:46you you made a great analogy when we hit this topic earlier seth which is baseball and there's
01:53people that like this about baseball and don't like this about baseball but the one thing about
01:56baseball is that all the parks are different there's a charm to it it's it makes the game unique
02:02that weather conditions and field conditions and outside elements is sort of the equivalent of
02:11the different demand the varying dimensions of baseball parks you know it's different it's
02:17different playing in denver than it is playing in houston it adds some personality to it i think
02:21the biggest thing is that a like it's not an embarrassment to the nfl because this is how
02:25football has been since the beginning it's the domes that came along along the way that changed it
02:32somewhat but by far for me it's that a there's a reason to want home field advantage look you might
02:40say that you might say that the well you take the weather out of it if you have all roofed stadiums
02:45the texans the texans version of the patriots weather is that indoor environment where the past so
02:54effective where the crowd noise really really matters when you're in a covered stadium and what the
03:00strength of your team is your dominant pass rush that doesn't it doesn't you still have an advantage
03:06because of the circumstances i think the the reason that you can watch a game like the broncos versus
03:12the patriots and say well look it just it turned it into a crapshoot or whatever else it might be
03:18it's because neither of those teams have a dominant rushing attack if one of those teams has a dominant
03:22rushing attack after that game what you say is man you know what that is a more complete football team
03:28that's able to win in those elements they're both cold weather teams they both have to deal with
03:33adverse circumstances and what have you but the team that had the better rushing attack or the
03:38better rushing defense perhaps ends up being the team that wins the game because of that that most
03:42the the purest and most physical part of the game that's why they won and it's not like this is a
03:49routine thing anyway where we're really blaming the elements all that often to that extreme degree
03:53it becomes the fact we blame the elements but like it's it's usually not as extreme as it was
03:59in the fourth well no i mean we've had a jillion snow games has lopez ever come in on a monday and
04:03said it was an embarrassment to the nfl before and plus the other thing is before the weather got really
04:08bad i would say no it wasn't clear to me that the broncos were the better team you know why
04:13because the broncos quarterback gifted the other team six points yep it was i mean it was very clear
04:20night and day that was a bad quarterback play right there and that cost them a touchdown and
04:27the only touchdown that knew him had some nice moments but before the weather got bad he was
04:31still it was starting to look like the patriots may have figured stidham out somewhat so i don't
04:36think it was clear at all that that that the the broncos were a better team they had the home field
04:42advantage um but yeah the like the weather to me is part of the charm of playoffs football and it's one
04:48of the reasons that it's it's nice that you have to be a complete football team to give yourself a
04:54best chance of making it through adverse weather circumstances and everything else along the way
04:59it's a really interesting debate because i think people from the lopez side of things and there's a
05:03lot of people out there that that are on that hey dome every stadium keep the conditions uh you know
05:09the the field conditions the weather conditions you haven't been 72 degrees everywhere now we really find
05:14out who the best the best team is the one that when the conditions are all equal is the one that's
05:19winning football games and your argument is that no the best football teams are the ones that build
05:26their team in a way that can withstand all the different elements that get thrust upon you during
05:32a season and a postseason right and plus the other part of it is too it that it's and this is like
05:36the college footballification of talking about the nfl i don't for me best team never factors into it
05:45i like what are we doing we're power ranking them we might as well have the ap decide who the super
05:49bowl winner is it's a it's a tournament at the end of the year and you end up being the super bowl
05:54champion you're the super bowl champion for that year uh like in baseball look the astros in 2019
06:01were probably the best team in baseball but they didn't win a world series yeah so like they did
06:05they they it's the world series champion of any given year it's the the super bowl champion of any
06:12given year that's all that we ultimately really care about and it doesn't have to it doesn't have
06:17to come down to no this is the purest representation of which team is best you got to win a game you got
06:23to win three or four consecutive games of varying circumstances here's where i'm at with it is with
06:28the snow part of it here is that i if i don't have a vested interest in the game i like watching snow
06:36games i'm entertained by snow games i there's part of the whole thing about not being able to see the
06:40yard lines on the field that's memorable i'll remember that forever stuff like that i did have
06:45a vested interest in that game i wanted denver to win the game i didn't want new england to get to
06:49the super bowl denver clearly adapted to the snow worse than new england did you know new england was
06:55at least able to figure out how to use drake may's legs they they did enough in the second
07:01half to score a field goal which was all that was needed in that game so that's when for me
07:05if i i don't mind the snow game i don't need domes on every stadium i like the character of the
07:10various places you know what though the part about that is i don't i think the i think the patriots got
07:16luckiest with the weather conditions because for one in the third quarter it was bad but it wasn't as
07:21bad as it was in the fourth quarter and in the third quarter the patriots had the advantage of the wind
07:25yeah and you know they kept saying on the broadcast you really can't explain just how
07:29big of a difference this is right now and so by the time it got to the fourth quarter and it's all
07:35about maintaining a lead the weather conditions had deteriorated even much for that much further
07:41and i think at that point even even though you had the advantage of the wind at your back
07:45they couldn't do as the the broncos weren't going to be able to do as much with it as the patriots
07:50the did you and maybe i missed this and i listened to the whole broadcast i know you and i have our
07:55fun with tony romo um about listening you know having to watch a game that he's on the sound was
08:00up the entire time didn't answer romo ever mention on the broadcast that there was a big storm coming
08:05in not until it started blowing in because there were because because i went back and i went back and
08:12listened to some radio in the denver area went back and found twitter like it was known that there
08:16was bad weather coming in yeah and that feels to me like that should have been a major storyline like
08:22in the second quarter of that game like boy you know the so-and-so which this team better take
08:27advantage of moving this way right now because man there is a there is a there is a mountain easter
08:32coming in right now it really it takes you into sean payton's decision to go forward on fourth down
08:39instead of kicking that too attempting that too yeah all right man if it's if it's going to be really
08:45low scoring in the second half then we got to just put the points on the board and go up by as much
08:50as possible right now yeah i think that's very uh but you could go the other way with it too and say
08:57yeah this might be our best chance to score a touchdown because the game out of reach can't
09:02expect to get down into the uh yeah i i could go either way on that i mean obviously with hindsight
09:08it's clear that oh yeah you should have taken the points there i thought he should have taken the
09:12points i tweeted that he should have taken the points this isn't me being revisionist i put it
09:16in the rundown that he should have taken the points right there all those things and the main reason was
09:20you could see the personality of that game unfolding in the first and second quarter this is going to be
09:24a low scoring game you could tell yeah denver's going to play it pretty quick the long deep pass to
09:29to mims notwithstanding i thought denver was going to you know kind of play it close to the vest
09:34um the denver defense was humming early in that game i felt like a two score lead even early in that game
09:39was going to put a little extra game pressure on the patriots there one of the biggest things about
09:44that matchup and i was honestly surprised that i didn't hear nance or romo talk about it maybe they
09:49did at some point i missed it was that unlike the texans the broncos have an exceptional deep ball
09:55defense they're very good at limiting explosive plays yeah and that's what that is this that's the
10:02the defining character of drake may in that offense this year is how they're able to hit these deep
10:08shots and the broncos snout some of his deep shots in the first half when the conditions were still
10:14better and that's where again though you might go if if if peyton's being realistic about it i in his
10:21mind he's thinking all right man there's a chance that drake may is going to hit one of these deep
10:24shots but he should have also had some confidence in his defense that no this is the broncos have a
10:30top three deep ball defense in the league and this should be exactly what gives drake may fits today is
10:36when we take that away from them they're really not doing much other than that yep and and by and
10:41large they did a good job of that drake may's legs were the biggest deep ball threat yes it's just him
10:45running running up the gut for some of those long runs that won the game i mean that was the difference
10:50in the game was drake may's legs especially when they sealed the game with that bootleg at the end
10:54um text message would lopez have pissed and moaned about the most iconic game in nfl history
10:59the ice bowl dallas having to play in green bay a hundred percent he would have i'm guessing right
11:04if you hate full weather yeah logic minus 57 wind chill he would have absolutely he would have
11:10absolutely said that was an embarrassment i think look it balances everything out though too it's it
11:15hey teams that have a roof have a they've got if they construct their team correctly you can have a
11:20really big home field advantage if you've got fast pass rushers if you've got a quarterback
11:25and a passing offense all of those things you've got a big home field advantage um those teams up
11:31north they've got a big advantage at home if they're better suited to to handle the weather
11:36condition does it surprise you that some of those teams that have that cold weather thing going are
11:41building dome stadiums now like cleveland's building a dome stadium chicago is looking at
11:45building a dome stadium it doesn't surprise me just because it's still about making money and the
11:51fan experience is going to be better people i would guess that people eat and drink a lot more
11:56when they're not just hunkered down trying to stay warm in a game yeah uh maybe maybe i'm wrong maybe
12:02they go up and spend more time in the concourse well but i i think people probably just spend more money
12:06or are willing to pay more if they know that it's not going to be miserably cold the big thing i've
12:11been reading about seth and the with these new stadiums because i'm a i'm sort of a stadium nerd
12:15is that the they they love the dome stadiums in these places not just because of the weather but
12:20they can use them year round yeah you know they can get you get concerts you get you know monster
12:24trucks you get all you can use them all year long that's one of the big benefits financially for
12:29owning an nba team is that you've got that arena and it's so it's good for pretty much any type of
12:35event uh that that's a that's owning your own stadium is in the nba for titas control the toyota
12:40center yeah it's a good it's a really good deal it's a really good deal um what about retractable
12:47roofs when the weather is so bad you can't see the field you simply close it all other times let
12:51it roll yeah i think there's i think you're going to see various things here there's going to be
12:55there i mean look we may be getting a new stadium here at some point in the next there's one thing
12:59i know about retractable roofs it's never as simple as you lay it out in the beginning and i
13:03would include that with minute maid you know uh look it's uh nobody's ever happy with it 100 of the
13:10time whatever your strategy is baseball it's simpler because they just they don't handle
13:14precipitation well at all it's just too hot here yeah with a football that would get super
13:19interesting because all right oh oh curiously enough all of a sudden oh no they decided not
13:26to close the roof they decided they decided to close the roof uh when the home team had a a 10
13:34point advantage yeah yep yep uh someone said that nance did mention at the beginning that they were
13:39expecting snow later okay well that's good i mean that was a storyline you should have mentioned it
13:43the wind is the bigger thing there i mean it was the the wind was extreme yep it was um seven one
13:49three five was better in that game and that i he i think it sounded like he was consciously shutting
13:55himself up during some of the rules discussions yeah he said i think somebody told him hey tony
14:00sometimes you make it more confusing when you're you know when you keep changing your opinion yeah every
14:06three seconds on a rules discussion let's let gene lay it out and maybe explain for the viewer
14:12exactly what's going on i know tony calls for gene like 10 times a game at least it feels like more
14:18the terror in tony's voice on the jarrett stidham grounding fumble backwards pass like
14:26we're definitely gonna need gene on this one jim you know but the one thing that disappointed me about
14:31that was that was where okay we've got a rules discussion here but he didn't break down the play and
14:37just show and explain that that stidham had done a good job of checking into that play but the and
14:43they were going to throw a screen to the left but the running back got hung up yeah on uh behind the
14:49pass protection and that's why it broke down and that's exactly what you want romo therefore is to
14:54explain hey why this play broke down i really didn't i would i would love for him to defer to gene
15:00on the rules discussion part of it but just explain exactly what went wrong on the play yeah yeah he was
15:06gene definitely gonna need you on this one it was quiet yeah and then he said ah i think we gotta go
15:15to gene he's looking for gene like he's trying to find his keys like he's like gene where are you gene
15:20but then romo made the good point and he said and at first i was i was almost going to be critical
15:26of romo because from the initial tv copy i didn't think it looked like a backwards pass at all
15:30romo said i guess the only thing that could change here is if is if they rule it a backwards pass and
15:38lo and behold that's what they did end up doing is ruling a backwards pass yeah so good job on that
15:42one romo i think that one to give a break to romo or any of the other commentators i think the booth
15:48review has made it way more confusing for the broadcast crew because there's times where
15:54something's getting reviewed up in the booth but the broadcasters might not know it and then all
16:00of a sudden it becomes a big deal and you feel like why didn't you guys tell me this was about to
16:04be a big deal right and it's just because they they really would have no way of knowing that the
16:09the booth review upstairs was silently working at it
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