Great news released!!

Hope you are ready for your weekend. It was a long week. It feels like a long week and it was only four days. That's probably a me problem. Well, it's weird how short weeks work out like that sometimes. Is it?

Yeah. Shouldn't do that. It shouldn't at all.

Really shouldn't. It should feel 80% of a full week. It should feel 20% shorter. And it doesn't.

It feels like 40% longer. I think we're all dealing with the effects of the week, what happened Monday. And because I think that takes a lot out of everybody.

Whenever you are sad or thoughtful, it tends to, we're not used to it. Yeah. Right. Oh, don't make me think. I know. Just don't take me out of my comfort zone. Feelings. Yeah, feelings. Oh, those are bad. So, but we have great news today.

I shouldn't even waste any time. Let's just start with great news today. They're off. So last night, DeMar Hamlin had the breathing tube removed. In and of itself, great news. They're not taking that out if they don't think he can breathe on his own.

Yeah. So we knew that yesterday he had, or the previous night he had woken up. They allowed him to come out of the medically induced coma. He woke up, eyes open, family there. Communicated, wrote, was using pen and paper because he still had the breathing tube in.

But communicating, responsive, all of that, positive signs. It took the tube out. He is talking. Yeah. Didn't he ask who won the game? He wrote, it's one of the first things he wrote was who won the game.

And the correct answer is you did. Yeah. Right.

He FaceTimed the Buffalo Bills team meetings this morning. So it's still, we're still a long way from knowing everything, but super positive signs about his cognitive abilities, uh, still to be seen motor and things like that. But, um, absolutely awesome. DeMar Hamlin looks like he's going to ultimately be okay. Now, what level of okay that is, we still don't know, but, uh, man, he certainly looks like he's going to be a functioning member of society. And that's what we all should have been rooting for. First and foremost, thinking that happens beyond that is not gravy, but considering what he went through and what could have happened, what normally happens in those situations is tremendous news. Here's Josh Allen, Buffalo's quarterback on not only DeMar, but the other real heroes here, obviously just a dire circumstance that nobody's expecting.

Nobody's ready for. There's nothing you can train about doing it like you can never put yourself in that situation until it happens. Um, I want to thank our coach mentioned that earlier, but our training staff for going out there, not knowing what's going on, but going through a checklist, working as a single cell symbiote, like saving his life, you know, and it is being on that field, you lose sleep, you hurt for your brother. Um, a lot of shared grief, but to the question before getting updates and positive updates, easy is so much of that, that pain and that tension that you feel, but coach handled it as perfect as anybody could.

Right. Here's the coach. Here's Sean McDermott on who did what for an assistant to find himself at that position and needing to take the action that he did and step up and take charge like he did. And there were others on the field as well. Um, um, is nothing short of amazing. And the courage that that took that is you talk about a, a real leader, a real hero saving the Mars life and just admire his strength. Right. He was referring to Denny Kellington, who was an assistant trainer with the Buffalo bills and everything that we have read or people that we have spoken to said that it was perfectly executed CPR because the situation was dire. Um, and again, being intubated on the field is a, and that's why I think, I think all these players were just so distraught.

You don't, you don't see those types of things. Uh, all right. So a little bit more from this Sean McDermott on DeMar Hamlin's dad talking to the team yesterday. Uh, DeMar's father spoke to the team and, um, really his message was, um, the team needs to get back to, um, focusing on the goals that they had set for themselves.

DeMar would have wanted it that way and I'm paraphrasing. And so, um, that includes our game against new England this week. And I think that that has helped. And, uh, and then again today, the news today, as Josh alluded to, uh, was a, was a big, was a huge help, uh, to getting us back to focused, um, on, on the game this weekend. And they actually got a chance to see DeMar.

They didn't know that we were going to do that. And, um, you know, wanted to make sure that that was actually going to be able to happen with DeMar's medical schedule there. And, um, to be able to, when I said that we had a treat in store, um, it was just, uh, you could see the look on their eye in anticipation of what was probably coming in and then, uh, to get to zoom. And when he came on the screen, um, it's a body, our assistant trainers done a phenomenal job out there, um, helping facilitate that this morning as well. And to, to see the players reaction, um, they stood up right away and clap for them. And, you know, he yelled some things to him and it was a pretty, pretty cool exchange for a few seconds there that was Brandon being, who's the general manager of the Buffalo bills. Yeah.

Could you imagine where they were Monday night into Tuesday? Not knowing. Yeah.

Positive signs, Wednesday, Thursday, but with Progressive's name, your price tool, you can find options that fit your budget because giving you options is the right thing to do. Oh yeah. Like when I hold the door for someone, sure. It may be weird if I don't time it right and they're a little too far away and now they're running and we're both asking ourselves, is it worth it to run instead of just, you know, letting them open their own door, but still it's the right thing to do.

So get options based on your needs with Progressive's name, your price tool, Progressive, casualty insurance company, affiliates, and third party insurers comparison rates, not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy Friday morning to be able to see him and have him speak to them though. I bet they floated out of that meeting room. Yeah. So good for them. Good for all of them.

Good for Damar Hamlin. Now to the business of football, sort of. The NFL will not resume the game between the Bengals and bills.

They will not resume the game. Do we have what Tori Holt said about this? Tori Holt was in studio with us yesterday and we're all rooting for Tori Holt to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. We talked about a number of things, including he's done a lot of media work. He and Solomon Wilcox were on the air Tuesday morning on NFL radio, on satellite if you have it. Anyway, they talked about what would be the right thing to do.

And Tori Holt with me here in studio yesterday did the same thing. Troy Vinson, Roger Goodell, the owners, they got it. They got some, some real decisions that they have to make. But, um, but we have to be whatever decision is made. Some folks will be happy about it. Some won't. I would say that nobody should be unhappy about it.

But you should. Right. Right. Should be happy with whatever decision they come up with.

Again, being after watching what we watched on on on Monday night. And, you know, and Troy Vinson, who will play a major role in and whatever decision comes about. He played.

Yeah. So he's a good player too. It was a heck of a player. I played against him.

Big, strong, physical, can run. So you got to believe that he has his players hat on while also trying to make the decision. But ultimately it's got to be in the best interests of our players because our players drive our league and it's got to be in the best interests of our players.

All right. So they made the decision to not play the game. Bengals and the Bills. It was seven to three.

I think it was early second quarter when this happened. And they have just decided nope. I don't know what happens to the fantasy, whatever.

I think we have a we have a fantasy league here. Yeah. And I believe it ended, didn't it? I'm not I'm not a part of that one. So I'm not sure.

I believe the one that we're in here. I think we just ended it. OK. I have no I honestly I don't know. Yeah, I don't. Mine's on standby. I was in the Losers Bragg. I checked.

I was in the Losers Bragg. It didn't really matter to me either way. But the it does create the problem, right? There are two teams who will play one less game. So here's what's going on. The NFL is convening a meeting today to amend the rules that could cause the AFC Championship game to be played on a neutral field, essentially because the Chiefs, Bills and Bengals all still had a chance to claim the number one seed and the buy that goes along with it. It creates the possibility that Kansas City, who lost to both the Bills and the Bengals this year, could be the number one seed simply because the Bills can't get to 14 wins. And on the off chance that Kansas City were to lose to the Raiders tomorrow afternoon, and I believe they are in Vegas, Cincinnati can't get to 13 wins, which would give them the possibility of the home field advantage. So what they're going to propose today or vote on today, they've already talked about it. Now they're going to vote on it today and they need 24 owners to say yes.

If if two of those three teams are in based on results of this week, by the way, if two of those three teams are in the championship game and certain things play out in week 18, we could we could have a neutral site for the AFC Championship game. Oh, wow. Yeah, exactly.

By the way, here's Chris Sims from pro football talk dot com NBC as well on the decision to cancel the game because I mean, honestly, this was the right thing to do. I think it's the one that makes the most sense. You know, it's it's the one that seems to be the least the least amount of hoops and, you know, craziness that we got to deal with as far as to figure it all out. It's not fair. You know, I get that it's not fair to the the Bills or the Bengals or or the Ravens for that matter.

You can go down the line here. It affects more than just these two teams. But, you know, one, like we talked about, it just doesn't seem right as far as to put them back together in the at the scene of the crime and just kind of relive that experience again. And, you know, too, it just let's just keep let's just keep this machine rolling here a little bit and go from there.

I just I feel like this is the best way, even though it's not perfect. It's not. And the other thing, too, Mike, is again, yeah, Kansas City, by all due accounts, if they win this weekend, they're going to get home field advantage.

And, you know, not necessarily sure that's right. But at the same time, we saw the Bengals go in there in the AFC championship game and beat them last year. The Bills have beat them there two of the last three times they've played them.

And I mean, of course, it was a miracle that they didn't they're not three for the last three. And, you know, just like you saw Joe Burrow there, you know, again, I know it's advantage Kansas City here a little bit. But with guys like Joe Burrow or Josh Allen, you can see right there, Joe Burrows, I don't care.

You know, yeah, it stinks. And we'll play you wherever. I mean, that's the way those guys are. We'll play you in the parking lot if it's to go to the Super Bowl.

Don't you worry. We'll be effing ready. Right. That's how that group is there. Those two, if I know them. So they're they'll have their troops and they'll then themselves will be ready to go to face that challenge when that when and if that time comes.

But I think this is the the one that makes the most sense to me. Players are players. They don't care. This decision will not be made will not be made by players.

It is going to be made by money people. All right. He mentioned Baltimore there. So there's Baltimore is not in contention for the number one seed. But here is a real scenario that impacts the Ravens and the Bengals. If Baltimore goes to Cincinnati on Sunday and wins that game, they will have swept the season series from the Bengals.

Because the Bengals bills game did not play, did not happen. If you're looking to get a new car, you could really cut expenses by bundling your car and renters insurance with Progressive. Sure, you love your old car, but you know it's not normal to give instructions on how to open the window. It should be self-explanatory, but it's not. And notice how when you're in other people's cars, you can feel cushion in the seats. That's pretty nice, right?

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Eight billion miles driven by LEAF owners globally since 2010. Aria not yet available for purchase. Expected availability late fall, subject to change. They will finish, again, assuming a Baltimore win, they will finish a half game behind Cincinnati in the division six. Oh boy. Which, okay. But because it's a sweep, if they are to meet in the first round of the playoffs in the 3-6 game, so if the Bengals were to at 11 and 5 be the third seed and the Ravens at 11 and 6 were to be the six seed, which is possible, then those two teams, we would flip a coin to see who hosts the game. You know people love flipping coins for decisions. Why not rock, paper, scissors?

I mean what are we doing here? Yeah, put some food in front of a dog and tell him to pick one. Odds and evens, right? Just do odds and evens, whatever.

And my head's exploding here. I do want to play Jonathan Jones from CBS Sports on like the Bengals. Now this, remember this is a vote. 24 people, 24 owners essentially would need to vote in favor of this particular plan for it to go through. Here's Jonathan Jones on why the Bengals are pushing a no vote here.

Figure out playoff seedings and what happens there, you rely upon winning percentage. And so the Bengals are sitting here saying, alright, if we have this on the books, why aren't we following that? Instead, what the NFL, what the competition committee tried to sort of improvise and put together is a situation that tries to inject a little bit more equity, a little bit more fairness into the process where Roger Goodell said in a statement, we know it's not perfect. Well, what you have right now is a Bengals team that says, well, if we lose this weekend and we've now been swept in the season series, but we are still the AFC North division champs, we should get the home game any other year.

The three seed gets to play at home against the six seed. And so now it's a coin flip. It's a 50 50 proposition.

If Sunday, if the scenario on Sunday winds up playing out and we may lose that coin flip. And so that's what the Bengals are pushing back on right now, Zach, and they're trying to get support from around the NFL. You need nine votes to reject this proposal.

You need more than a quarter to reject this proposal. Well, who's going to side with the Bengals here? Ultimately, this is something that doesn't impact every team. It only impacts a maximum of four teams.

It's the bills, the chiefs, the Bengals and the Ravens to an extent. And so where Katie Blackburn has to really try here on this zoom call at noon Eastern is to tell owners, Hey, let's not get in the business and let's not set the precedent of changing post season rules a week plus out. We have these rules on the books. Let's follow what the books say.

All right, that's Jonathan Jones. And that really is the money part right there because all of the arguments about equity and fairness and there not being any good solution are real, right? All of these arguments. So I want to put this as delicately as I can.

Go scratch. Yes, right. They're the only I'm and I could not be more serious here. The only concern should be for the people who play the games.

Yeah, what's the best for them? And I just heard Chris Sim say, and he's right, that most of these guys don't care where the games are played. They don't.

Now, the coaches might, the owners might obviously it's all it's all about it's all about money. Because every once in a while, every blue moon, yellow moon, harvest moon, waxing moon, waning gibbous moon, I don't care. Every once in a while, you just deal with it.

You just deal with the situations. And there is a rule on the books. They actually have a rule.

We didn't need to come up with solutions. There's a rule. It was put in place two years ago because they knew that there would be games canceled because of COVID. Actually, there weren't. But they thought that there would be. So they put a rule in place. Winning percentage.

It was good two years ago. Why is it? They all agree to it.

Why are we just doing that now? We don't have to we don't have to get into personalities and biases because I got news for you. Mike Brown, the owner of the Cincinnati Bengals, doesn't have a lot of friends among owners.

It'd be like it's not quite as bad as if it were Mark Davis. Yeah. But I mean, he's not a hugely popular guy.

I'll tell you who is Steve Beshati. Yeah. Right. So it doesn't bother me.

I'll vote for Beshati. But why even bring that into the equation here? You have a rule. Just apply the rule.

Do it in terms of winning percentage. And that's it. Could the Chiefs get home field advantage based on the bills not being able to win a 14th game? Yes, they can.

And you know what? Oh, well, home. Last I checked home field advantage is not a guarantee.

Ask the Green Bay Packers two years in a row. Yes. All right. So. But I look, I have a lot of questions about this.

I am curious what people think, though. So at some point in the next 20 minutes or so, I would love to talk to the masses about this. Nine one nine eight six zero five three two six. I want to know why, if you do think this, why you think we need fairness? Why should we go out of our way? Break the rules for this notion that we are going to achieve some level of equity here in a sport that does nothing to achieve equity. Absolutely nothing to achieve equity.

Nine one nine eight six zero five three two six. We will get back to that. By the way, is the product of an AFC Championship game better on a neutral field or at a home field? I wouldn't say one way or another. It shouldn't matter.

It shouldn't matter. But there's an atmosphere at a home field that does not that does not play into it at a neutral field. Yeah. If you go to a college football game, right? The college football game on campus is a next level experience. A college football game at a neutral site is a really good game.

Yeah, it's just there are just a different animal. My opinion, I think the NFL would be doing itself a disservice by taking an AFC Championship game to a neutral side. I get the Super Bowl. That that is what it is.

That is a spectacle. The others are championship games. Right. There was also believe it or not, discussions about adding an 18 to the playoff mix in the AFC.

Oh, boy. Right. Because, well, Kansas City, you shouldn't get the buy that you don't deserve, except there are 13 and three. And Buffalo could have just as easily lost the game to Cincinnati, in which case Kansas City went 13 and three.

So I don't even understand. They're also there was also a proposal about having Kansas City choose between. All right, you gotta get a choice.

Do you want the first round by or do you want home field advantage against either the Bills or the Bengals? I mean, what you make my head explode. Let's get to at least one other thing here real quick. So Max Pacioretti came back to the Hurricanes lineup last night and he took six.

He didn't take it. The Hurricanes, in honor of Max Pacioretti, who wears number 67, the Hurricanes fired 67 shots on goal last night. Just for him. I have never seen that. I have seen a lot of games where the Hurricanes post 50 shots on goal, and that seems like a lot, right? 67 was a cartoon number. The Hurricanes had more shots in the third period than they had against the Rangers.

Oh, wow. Well, that's one way to put it. 28 third period shots, and they scored no goals. We just needed three more. We just needed three, right? The expected goals on natural stat trick dot com for Carolina last night was six and a half, and they scored. They scored three. So after the game, you know, what went wrong? Rod Brind'Amour, what?

What was your takeaway from the game? Just got a little mixed up, but not really. Just what you said.

You take a little breath. Boom. That was on one face off the other one. Never got picked inside. Little interference, but it happens every face off. Gotta fight through that, didn't.

Not seen your net. And the other ones were just kind of weird. Tipped bounces and things. Listen, we played a good game. I'm not going to put any negative on this. You put up 70 shots, you gotta win the game. We didn't.

You gotta bury those. What you gotta do is give credit where credit is due. That guy played. It was a good game in the net that you're ever going to see. That's the story.

You can write out other things, but essentially, that's the difference. The first part of that was about the first three goals that Carolina allowed, which were all defensive breakdowns. The first three were all defensive breakdowns, and Pyotr Kachetkov wasn't sharp last night. He was much better against the Rangers than he was last night against Nashville. But the other part of that is, I mean, we had 67 shots, and it wasn't like they had 67 shots from the blue line that were easy to see. Yussi Soros was spectacular last night, and the Hurricanes should have still scored seven goals.

It was bonkers what I watched. And my favorite are the people who, well, the majority of those shots were right at him. Okay, the majority of 67 shots.

Right. So let's just say it was an overwhelming majority. So 50 of them hit him right in the Nashville. What about the other 17?

Should have been 20 to three. I mean, come on, people. Yeah, yes, there's no question about it that some of the shots just hit him in the chest.

But my gosh. There's so many lucky bounces. The puck was laying in the crease for like two minutes and just whacking at it, whacking at it, whacking at it.

And Soros were kicking a leg out here. There was a body like I don't know how Andrei Svechnikov didn't tie the game on the power play with about a minute and a half left. I don't know how it didn't go, but it didn't go. Andrei Svechnikov played the best game I've ever seen from somebody who had no points. He had five grade A chances on his own. He had 10 scoring chances overall. He had eight shots on goal. It's crazy, crazy.

No points for Andrei. I hate it. Progressive presents adjusting to the suburbs. You used to associate crickets with silence. But since you bought a house in the suburbs, you know, crickets hate silence. If any other creature realized rubbing its legs together made a piercing high pitch noise, they might think maybe I won't do that constantly, all night long. Luckily, you can save with Progressive by bundling your home in auto. Now that's something to make noise about.

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