🎙️ ‘The Race Continues’ – Chiefs vs. Jets Preview w/ Emmett Johnson | Defending The Kingdom

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Matt, did you ever run cross country in high school?

00:00:02
Speaker 2: I did actually, yeah. I ran cross country my freshman and sophomore year just to stay in shape. I wasn’t very good, but I did it, yeah.

00:00:09
Speaker 1: I like you. I like you even more now because I so respect cross country runners. And we just had a lot of the state championships held throughout the Chiefs kingdom. And in Kansas, I’ll give a shout out here to Smith Center, Madison Howland was a four-time state champion. I think it’s only happened like eight times in the history of the state. but I admire cross country runners because it is a tough sport. It’s not running around a track. You’re running through terrain and stickers and everything else.

00:00:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don’t like running, but it was a good way to just stay in shape and stay fit because you show up on a cold morning and you have to go run a 5K against people that are really good at it. It’ll force you to try to adopt some healthy habits. So I probably could not even attempt to run a 5K now, I’ll be honest. I think I collapsed early on, but back in the day I did it.

00:00:58
Speaker 1: I’ve been given all these metaphors about long races. Last night on the Chiefs Kingdom show, I said with Coach, it’s the Indy 500. We’ve only run 206 miles or raced 206 miles of the 500. You and Nellie, your wife are F1 fans. We’re not even halfway through the race.

00:01:15
Speaker 2: Shout out Kimi Antonelli, world champion.

00:01:17
Speaker 1: There you go. But the fact is there’s a lot of race to run here. Now, the Chiefs are not running from ahead. in the AFC West after the loss to the Broncos. But suffice it to say, there’s a lot of ground to cover. And week to week, it becomes these different legs of the state cross-country meet.

00:01:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. And there’s some cathartic things we can do here because that was a bummer of a game, if we’re being honest. That’s one of the few times in recent memory that I’ve actually lost sleep over a loss, if I’m being honest, particularly that first night getting back. A lot happened.

00:01:55
Speaker 3: You lose.

00:01:56
Speaker 2: an 11 point lead and kind of the blink of an eye. And then that’s one thing. I think it’s the three cracks from the one yard line that I had said a difficult time processing afterward. But, and I’m going to go through my top five steering wheel pounders from over the years in a minute.

00:02:12
Speaker 1: Just to explain steering wheel pounders, what those are. Yeah.

00:02:16
Speaker 2: Well, it’s a term that you’ve coined. It’s when you’re sitting at a stoplight and the thought enters your mind and you just get the steering wheel.

00:02:22
Speaker 1: Could be a long ago. It could be 50 years ago and you pound the steering wheel because it does not leave your soul.

00:02:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So I’m going to go through those in a minute. But what I think is interesting is we process it one way. Fans process it one way. Patrick Mahomes in the locker room process it a different way where of course it hurts in the moment. It’s devastating, but you can’t just ruminate on it. And Patrick talked about it after the game. The league is so week to week, day to day, play to play that You can’t change what happened in Denver. What you can do is change how you prepare. You can change how you react to things. And you can get yourself in a position where if that happens again, you change the outcome. So we’re going to talk about these things. It’s cathartic. It helps to talk about the bad times every once in a while. But to your point about the marathon, Patrick gets that. The players get that. And that’s a good thing. Okay, now for some really fun stuff. My top five steering wheel pounders of all time. I have some honorable mentions first.

00:03:21
Speaker 1: This is all time? Chiefs history?

00:03:22
Speaker 2: Well, no, I should clarify. I tried to truncate it. So it’s just regular season, Patrick Mahomes games.

00:03:28
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:03:29
Speaker 2: Regular season, Patrick Mahomes. Because you can go over Chiefs history, we can get lost. So anyway, here’s some honorable mentions. Week 11 at Denver last year still kind of sticks in my mind just because we had the lead in the fourth quarter in that game. I really don’t like losing in Denver. It’s not fun. So that’s up there for me.

00:03:45
Speaker 1: But it was a similar feeling in the fact that this last game, hey, we got it. We’re in control. Oh, we don’t have it. Oh, we got it. Oh, no, we don’t have it. And that game was at least one of those, oh, we got this. Because they were pinned back. The Broncos were pinned back in their own territory and convert a third down and 12. Yeah. Or the game is entirely different.

00:04:06
Speaker 2: So frustrating. Week 13 in Dallas last year, the Cowboys game.

00:04:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:04:10
Speaker 2: Just third down after third down after third down for Dallas. So frustrating.

00:04:14
Speaker 1: Torture.

00:04:14
Speaker 2: Week three at the Colts in 2022, it was the unsportsmanlike conduct call that extended the Colts drive and they beat us. Totally inexplicable. That Chiefs team was a wagon and losing in Indianapolis that year makes no sense in retrospect. And then week 10.

00:04:28
Speaker 1: They were like 3-14.

00:04:30
Speaker 2: They’re terrible. And we won the Super Bowl. We lost one game after that game. I don’t know. Week 10 in 2019 at Tennessee, it was the multiple botched field goal attempts that allowed the Titans to go on and win at Titans team wasn’t very good and the Chiefs won the Super Bowl that year. So weird.

00:04:46
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:04:47
Speaker 2: Here’s my top five. So remember, regular season only. So not any playoff games.

00:04:51
Speaker 1: Well, those are honorable mention. I thought you were going through the top five.

00:04:53
Speaker 2: Those are just honorable mention.

00:04:54
Speaker 1: Those are honorable mention. Yeah. There’s a lot of steering wheel pounders there.

00:04:57
Speaker 2: Now we’re going back.

00:04:58
Speaker 1: That’s your whole drive home.

00:04:59
Speaker 2: We’re going back 10 years, you know, but still. Okay. So week 17 at the Bengals in 2021.

00:05:03
Speaker 1: Ooh.

00:05:03
Speaker 2: It was the beginning of the three straight losses to the Bengals. This is cringing me out.

00:05:11
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:05:11
Speaker 2: When my thoughts on Cincinnati really began. We had a two touchdown lead in that game. The Bengals came all the way back with some big plays though. They converted a third and 27 on their final drive that helped them win the game.

00:05:23
Speaker 1: Was that when they stripped Kels? They had him like the whole mafia style. Or wait, no, that was the night game. That was in 22, I think. Because they had him like good fellas. They had him like his arms wrapped around his back and while somebody’s punching on him, getting the ball.

00:05:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was part of a tough stretch against the Bengals. But it began in 2021. That’s number five. Number four is week 11 against the Eagles in 2023. We had a 10-point lead at halftime. Eagles take the lead. We had the drop pass that would have won the game at the very end. Just a great throw from Mahomes. That’s a tough one. Number three, same season, week 14 against the Bills, the Kadarius-Tony offside game. It’s always going to be up there for me.

00:06:03
Speaker 1: It wiped out what would have been a play that NFL films would have run Into perpetuity. Yeah. It’d been 50 years from now with your grandkids, you’re going, oh, look, kids, look at the Travis Kelsey lateral all the way across. Oh, it didn’t count. So we’ll never see it again.

00:06:18
Speaker 2: And that one was tough because I didn’t see the flag until well after the play concluded. I look back and see the flag. I think maybe it was Joe Tooney who was just standing there with his hands on his hips. And the ref comes out and says, offside. I’m like, oh, offense.

00:06:32
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.

00:06:32
Speaker 3: That was tough.

00:06:33
Speaker 1: You’re with me in a lot of these games. So you know, as the play-by-play guy, you’ll see the flag. out of the corner of your eye. And yet you have to call the play as if that flag may not be on us. Sure. But on that one, I’m thinking I saw the flag. I hope it’s not because I got to call this play like it’s the greatest of all time, but it just disappeared, went away.

00:06:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s a tough one. And really that is the last time I felt the way I felt on Sunday night and Monday morning, because number two on my list is Sunday’s game. We have an 11-point lead.

00:07:10
Speaker 1: Number two.

00:07:11
Speaker 2: Number two. We have an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter. But not even that. That part is a bummer. The part that, again, makes it number two for me is having the ball on the one, because we’re.

00:07:20
Speaker 1: Going to win.

00:07:21
Speaker 2: We’re going to win the game. We have three cracks at it. When Ken went down at the one, and of course, he fumbled, but he was down, I think everyone knew the Chiefs are going to win this game. And to not win it is just… It’s tough. That’s why it’s number two for me. It was the first time that we blew a two-score lead in the fourth quarter since my number one steering wheel pounder, which will, I think, forever be number one for me for some reason. It’s week two at Baltimore in 2021. It was the Clyde Fumble game.

00:07:48
Speaker 1: We’re driving to win it.

00:07:51
Speaker 2: Driving to win it. We had a two-score lead in the fourth quarter. Lamar made some plays, but then we still have time to go kick a game-winning field goal There was the fumble.

00:07:59
Speaker 1: We lose. That one also- O-Way strips him of the ball. Yeah. I’ve never looked at O-Way the same ever since then.

00:08:06
Speaker 2: Me either. And I think that one was intensified because we had weird COVID rules back then.

00:08:11
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.

00:08:11
Speaker 2: So a handful of us couldn’t fly back on the team plane. So we had to fly back commercial out of BWI, but that was a night game. And we had an early morning flight that was so early, there was no time to go back to the hotel. So we had to sleep in the airport at BWI.

00:08:24
Speaker 1: Nothing better.

00:08:25
Speaker 2: And then we had a connection in Nashville- So we just get no sleep because we couldn’t sleep in the airport, right? It was miserable. Connection in Nashville. I remember the flight from Nashville to Kansas City. There was a kid just crying in the back of the plane the whole way, just crying and screaming. And I’m like, man, this is tough. So that will forever be my number one steering wheel pounder. But Sunday was up there. And to get back to what I said earlier, we’re not saying this to pile on. We’re saying it because these things happen sometimes. It’s a matter of how does the team respond to it? The team, for the most part, after all of these, responded In a great way. I mean, think about 2023. Multiple games on my list were in that season. The Chiefs won the Super Bowl that year because they responded to it the right way. And like I said earlier, what Patrick said after the game, I think provided a lot of perspective where they’re not sitting in the locker room on Wednesday saying like, man, we had them. It was right there. We had them. They’re not pointing fingers or blaming each other. They’re saying, how can we make sure next time we’re in that situation, we make the plays to win the game? That’s what winning teams do. And that’s what our team’s going to do.

00:09:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this segment brought to you by Ralph’s Psychiatric Service. If you need psychiatric help, like Matt and I do, call Ralph. It’s just ralph.com, the shrink. Yeah. Yeah, so very therapeutic. A positive is in the Bronco game. The Chiefs were able to move the ball and actually move the ball against the Seahawks. These are two of the top defenses in the NFL. But the Chiefs were able to move the ball in the game and to get that 24-13 lead. The other thing was to steal a possession from the Broncos at the end of the second quarter. That was really pretty cool. And then the play of Emmitt Johnson. Okay, you went through all the reasons it’s a steering wheel ponder. Another one for me is the fact that Emmitt Johnson would have been, if not the talk of the NFL this week, he would have been like in the second sentence because that game was phenomenal. And we’re going to have Emmitt on in the podcast here in just a moment. But a 73-yard catch and run, another 38-yard catch and run, oh, a 15-yard run, oh, a 44-yard kickoff return to give you a chance to win the game at the end. And here’s what’s overlooked, a special team’s assist on a tackle. That would have been the story. But it’s almost like the Kelsey Kadarius-Tony play.

00:10:38
Speaker 4: Poof.

00:10:39
Speaker 1: It just kind of goes away.

00:10:41
Speaker 2: He is such a great football player. That’s the way I keep describing him because he does everything. He returns kicks. He catches the ball. He runs the ball.

00:10:47
Speaker 1: He blocks.

00:10:48
Speaker 2: He pass protects. He can tackle on kick coverage. He can do just about everything. I’m glad he got some big plays and some big stats under his belt, though, because when you have those big highlights, I think it really gets everyone’s attention nationally. There’s some fun things with that game with him. 128 receiving yards by him were the third most by a Chiefs running back in a single game in the Super Bowl era. Only other two were Jamal Charles and Spencer Ware ahead of him. It was also the most receiving yards.

00:11:15
Speaker 1: And Jamals were all on screen passes against the Raiders that day. Five screens, you might want to figure out how to defend it.

00:11:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, won everyone’s fantasy championship. It was also the most receiving yards by a running back in a single game since 2021. The guy that had the most since then is Alvin Kamara. So it just shows how special that game was by Emmett. And just such a great guy. I mean, like you said, we’ll hear from him here in a minute. First of many big games, and hopefully next time it’s a big Chiefs win.

00:11:41
Speaker 1: We have a really talented person that works on our 65TPD production crew from Wahoo, Nebraska named Emma Hastings. Her grandma thought Emmett should have been the one-one pick in the draft. When we do redrafts, like the Trey Smith six-round now becomes a first-round pick, I wonder where Emmett’s going to be in the redraft here in about three to four years if he stays healthy. Oh, yeah. Because I told Emma today, Grandma, stand down. I might love him now more than you do. Yeah.

00:12:07
Speaker 2: Again, it’s why the draft, like we love the draft, but it’s overanalyzed because Emmett didn’t have the fastest 40 time. Doesn’t matter. He’s a football player. He can go out there and play football effectively and make guys miss. He looks fast on the field, right? I’m sure the DB, I forget who it was, but the DB that was at the very end of that 73 yard catch and run who couldn’t keep up with Emmett thinks Emmett’s pretty fast and pretty agile. So it’s where you kind of have to throw out the combine numbers sometimes. It’s a matter of, can they play football? What does the tape say? And you and I saw it on the night of the draft that we got him like this guy can play and we’re seeing it right now.

00:12:42
Speaker 1: Matt, what excites you about the Chiefs defense this year?

00:12:46
Speaker 2: I think it’s the blend of veteran players like guys like Chris Jones, George Karloftis with our rookies that we’re really excited about.

00:12:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of think kind of a new school, old school approach. And we need defense. And in the kingdom, we know that championship success starts with defense. Think of 2023, right? Our defense carried us to a Super Bowl title or helped us carry this to that. Anyway, 10x. ai is the AI security operations provider protecting organizations from cybersecurity attacks at machine speed, but with human analysts on the loop 24-7. Experience cybersecurity that’s AI native and human-led, united against every threat. Visit 10x. ai for details. Sounds to me like what you want from the Chiefs defense.

00:13:29
Speaker 2: I love that idea. Let’s roll.

00:13:30
Speaker 1: What are you still thinking about? We’ve kind of covered this, I think, because there’s like 14 things we’re still thinking about from the game last Sunday. Anything else come to top of mind? Well, this segment brought to you by Ralph’s Psychiatric Care.

00:13:43
Speaker 2: If I’m being honest, it’s just the sequence at the one yard line is what I’m still thinking about. And not so much anymore. I’m moving on from it now. But yeah, that first night, that Monday morning, that’s what I’m thinking about. Do you ever watch something over and over again, thinking that if you keep watching it, it’ll change the outcome?

00:14:00
Speaker 1: The Jalen Moore false start. I have watched it literally 30 times. Yeah. I’ve watched it 30 times. I keep looking at it. That’s just, I can’t take my eyes off it. So yeah.

00:14:10
Speaker 2: I did that with a bunch of those plays. So the Ken run where he gets down to the one and the Broncos thought he fumbled, but he was down clearly. I keep watching that over and over thinking he’s going to get in. In the second Ken run as well, I think it was on third down. I think he’s going to get in. So I’m with you. I watched it over and over again. And I told Ellie about it and she’s like, you’ve got to stop. You’ve got to get a grip. I’m like, I know. But the other side of it is what I said earlier that Our guys aren’t doing that. We’re allowed to do that. Fans are allowed to do that. Our guys aren’t doing that. They’re not just dwelling on it because you can’t do that. That’s what bad teams do is they dwell on things and point fingers and say, well, if this had happened and this had happened, we would have won. Our team doesn’t do that. Our team gets back in the lab. They get back in the locker room. They figure out what went wrong and they correct it. So while I think the first 24 hours or so, I was still thinking about, man, we had the ball at the one yard line. We could have walked off in Denver and how awesome that would have been. I think I’m also thinking about the fact that our team doesn’t worry about things like that. They move on. They don’t let it snowball. So that gives me comfort after a game like that.

00:15:17
Speaker 1: You know who’s really good about that? Who? It’s Coach Reed. Yeah. I get a one-on-one with him for the Chiefs Kingdom show. And it’s maybe my favorite part of the week because he’s not press conferency. It’s like you’re just sitting down like the two of us right now doing it. It’s a fireside chat, I call it. And it was awesome. in the way perspective, yeah, he’s disappointed, but he basically, when you said what you said, it just reminded me of that and how I felt after that conversation with him. And so he’s so good about moving on and trying to figure out, go back to the lab. The two things I’m still thinking about are one, 13-13 left to go in the game, completely controlled that game. For a few exceptions, completely controlled the game and controlled the game on defense. And the Broncos get five plays at 61 yards in nanoseconds. Now, that’s a four-minute drive. Most of that was down at the goal line. It took four plays to score. But the five plays to get down there was like that. I’m still thinking about it. And another one is spotting the ball. Fourth down and two. You were there. I call the play-by-play. I go, ooh, that’s near a first down. Might be a first down. All of a sudden, it’s two yards from a first down. Did he step out of bounds? He was going at an angle toward the front state. And all of a sudden, and then, no, we’re going to punt fourth and two. It’s probably what you ought to do. Oh, wait a minute. It’s fourth and a half yard while the punt team’s on the field? That’s just stuff that should not happen. That’s administrative. That’s not the double face mask they didn’t see. This is stuff that you have to administer during the game. I like officials. We need football officials. If you want to be a part of the game, we need football officials, all shapes and sizes. But if you’re going to work a game, you have to do it well, especially administratively. And that one, I can’t get out of my mind. Maybe I will at some point.

00:17:13
Speaker 2: It changed the game.

00:17:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:17:14
Speaker 2: Because who knows what we’d do at that point.

00:17:17
Speaker 1: It’s less than a yard. Yeah. When they re-spotted it with the down marker, that’s where it was either a first down or should have been. And now, all of a sudden, Andy, it’s too late. You don’t want to use a timeout there. It’s too valuable. So, that was one of the worst administrative errors I’ve seen in this league in a while.

00:17:35
Speaker 2: Well, because it penalized the Chiefs because at least if you’re going to move it, okay, I understand that. Let’s get it right. But you need to give the Chiefs now time to decide what they want to do. We shouldn’t have to call timeout in that situation.

00:17:47
Speaker 1: Well, let’s go later in the game where it’s inside of two minutes and Sean Payton’s worried about a spot. He has the challenge flag in his hand. I’m going, well, that won’t do you any good because you can’t have a coach’s challenge inside of two minutes. But Clayton, he had a really good conversation. Looked like maybe bagels and coffee. I don’t know. And- But they got it right.

00:18:06
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:18:06
Speaker 1: But there was the time allowed to get it right. So give credit to Sean Payton, but get it right on the other way. Yeah. So that’s all I’m saying. Not that I’m, but I’m still thinking about it.

00:18:16
Speaker 2: Well, in the radio booth, Danen said it right away. He’s like, I don’t know about that spot. And even the refs then corrected it. But you have to give us an opportunity to then change our decision because the entire landscape of that decision has changed. And I’m with you. It changed the whole game. Now, we didn’t lose the game because of that. It’s one of the reasons. It didn’t help though. And I’m with you on that.

00:18:38
Speaker 1: You know, Mondays for officials aren’t great when they have their own little meeting and they talk to New York and I’ve got friends that are officials in the league. Those aren’t fun. I believe it. I got a feeling the crew did not have a great Monday, you know, check down session on it. Anyway, that is what it is. So what also is, is the fact that we have a chance to talk. We’ve already kind of set this up. But he really is a remarkable football player. Feels like a throwback. It feels refreshing. But when number 10 rolled into town, we knew we got a guy that now has proven you can win a game eight different ways with Emmitt Johnson on the field. Emmitt Johnson. Oh, my gosh. What a game. And the fact that you did so many different things. You know what my favorite thing is, though? 73-yard touchdown, 38-yard catch. 15-yard run, 40 special teams assisted tackle. Just that game and having all those things happen, Emmitt, your reaction?

00:19:42
Speaker 4: I feel great, man. I feel like I put in a lot of work. And throughout the week, you never know when your opportunity is going to be in the game. And so just staying ready for my opportunity, it felt good to actually go out there and do it and help the team too. Like that’s what I really care about was helping the team, whether if it’s offense, making a tackle on special teams. I told coach told when I first got here, I said, man, whatever you need me to play on special teams, I want to do.

00:20:05
Speaker 2: So that’s just kind of who I am as a player. Okay. On the 73-yard touchdown, how long was the ball in the air?

00:20:13
Speaker 4: It felt like forever. I’m not going to lie because I was looking up at it and Pat kind of like sifted it.

00:20:17
Speaker 1: He did what he did. Like he throws a special pass. I don’t know.

00:20:20
Speaker 4: It’s just different coming from Pat. But like just seeing it in the air, I was just like drop, drop, drop. And then once it dropped, I seen green grass and then I was like, yeah, just got to do what I got to do.

00:20:30
Speaker 1: I said it during the play-by-play. If you go find it, there’s like one dude back there I got off He’s got no chance. No chance.

00:20:36
Speaker 4: Yeah. I almost did trip, but I knew that one guy wasn’t going to be able to tackle me for sure.

00:20:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:20:42
Speaker 3: For sure.

00:20:42
Speaker 1: I kind of felt sorry for the guy, actually. You and I had this discussion maybe on our first ever chat. But when I saw your profile and studying you, getting ready for the draft, and actually watching Summit Nebraska, I looked at Amir Abdullah’s profile, and it is the exact profile. What about Amir and the fact he’s been a pro all these years and his impact on you?

00:21:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, Amir, when I first met him, like he kind of just took me in as like a little brother when I first met him in Nebraska. I’m somebody who like I study the past and the greats that came before me. So he really appreciated the fact that I reached out to him when I first got to Nebraska just to pick his brain. Obviously, he’s played at a high level in college. And then when he got to NFL, he’s still playing today. I think it’s like year 12 or something for him. So he’s somebody who I’ve learned a lot from just by being around him. We spent a weekend together. This was like last season in Nebraska. And we just kind of watched film together. And just like he kind of took me through every single step of what it means to play running back. And he’s somebody who is a great example because he takes care of his body really, really well. He’s so crazy about the game of football. And so ever since we met each other, we’ve had a great bond. And he’s taught me a lot of different things, like not just football wise, but just in life. And so it is good to have that bond with him. And especially we both have a similarity of being a great Husker running back.

00:22:04
Speaker 1: So I love Amir a lot.

00:22:07
Speaker 2: Same idea. It seems like you and Ken Walker have quite a bond already so far. You’re always walking around the field together pregame. What has he done for you earlier in your career so far?

00:22:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, he’s another person that’s just super, super humble. He really cares about other people in the room. And I think that’s what I love about him the most is we’re kind of similar in that way where we care about other guys and We want to see the best for each other. So no matter who’s in the game, no matter who’s doing well, who’s not doing well, like we always want to see each other win. And he’s somebody who like when I first got here, like it felt like we clicked so well because we had the same mentality and we have a lot of similarities when it comes to just how we treat people and how we attack football. And so he’s been great to me so far. We got obviously a lot more games to be playing with each other.

00:22:54
Speaker 1: Emmitt, gaining trust is such a huge part of this game. And you’re down there in third down. I mean, the fact that you’re being trusted was so much. What about earning that trust? And where do you go from here?

00:23:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, it means a lot. When I first got here, obviously watching Pat play, I’m just like, whatever, whatever, whatever it takes to protect Pat, I got to do. And I told them when I first got here, I made a joke with Veach. I was like, man, like they’re talking about blocking because I didn’t really have to block much in college. So I’m like, that’s something I could easily do just because I want to do it. It’s something that I care about as much as, same as much as running the ball or catching the football. So when I’m in there on third down, I’m just making sure that I’m not getting Pat hit. I’m giving him time to throw. And then I’m also being a safety valve, you know, when the play breaks down or the defense is throwing different pressures, I can get open in space and I’m really good at catching the football.

00:23:50
Speaker 1: So I take big pride in it.

00:23:51
Speaker 4: And that’s another reason why I catch 200 passes a day is just because I want to make sure that I’m open for Pat and he trusts me to be out there with them.

00:23:58
Speaker 2: Tell us about that. 200 passes a day?

00:24:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, every single day. And then sometimes I don’t get all 200 here. And my brother still, when I get back home, he’s like, yeah, make sure you get, what if it’s like 110 more? He always throws to me in the garage. So it’s something I do every day because I want to make sure, like I said, I don’t drop any footballs and I’m super prepared and I can affect the game in that way too.

00:24:19
Speaker 2: It seems like your family has a huge influence on you. Can you tell us about that a little bit?

00:24:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, starting from my parents. I think they’re the main reason why just being raised by them and the adversity they went through with the Civil War in Liberia. I think that kind of just set the tone for my whole family and how we’re just so grateful for everything. And we really care about each other.

00:24:41
Speaker 1: We care about other people as well.

00:24:42
Speaker 4: And so I think them having the foundation led to my brother, sister kind of being like role models for me growing up. And so now I’ve learned so much just by, you know, just being in the Johnson family and seeing how hard my mom works every single day going to work. When she’s tired, I’ll be seeing her at home like she’s super, super tired and doesn’t want to get up and go to work. She still gets up and goes to work. So that just gives me motivation when I’m here. Football is long days. You know, we’re here early. We’re here late. So it’s like I just get to wake up and play football every day, you know, and it’s like my mom’s back home working jobs and I just get to wake up and play a game that I love. So why not be the best? football player I could be. Um, this is all I’m doing. I’m done with school now. So it’s just football. And then my older brother, he’s the reason why I’m here really. Cause, um, throughout all the adversity I went through in college and high school, he would always just make sure that he kept my mindset on straight. And he’s somebody who, um, he just, he knows so much about life. Like he, he taught me so much about life. Cause I was going through my hardest moments. He would always tell me block out distractions, just focus on what you need to focus on. That’s why I started my brand. And he, he, currently moved out here with me just to make sure that I can focus just on football and he can take care of all the off the field stuff. So yeah, my big bro is like the main reason to why I’m here today.

00:26:03
Speaker 1: Shout out to CJ. Have you talked to Tom Bahaly yet?

00:26:07
Speaker 4: Yes, I did when I first got here and he’s Liberian too. I got to ask him about some Liberian food too. That’s a good call because I got to go talk to him about that.

00:26:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you too survived the Civil War. But the other thing you and I talked about at the very beginning was your ability to play special teams. Now, I’ve made a prediction. Matt knows this. The kingdom knows this. As I predicted, you’re going to block a kick. You’re going to return a kick. It’s coming. Yeah, for sure. You embrace it. You’re great at it. Now, I asked you about Gunner. You said, I don’t know any Gunner.

00:26:37
Speaker 2: But you’re getting Gunner reps.

00:26:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, they put me on there. After the first couple of weeks, Coach was like, He’s like, we’re going to put you at the end. I never really played Gunner before. And then I think the Raider game, I had to play there too. So it was just like, whatever it takes, man. That’s all I care about. I got to go play long snapper. I know we got a great one in James, but whatever it takes.

00:26:57
Speaker 2: Well, the little stuff gets us excited, obviously, because we love the touchdown, love the kick return. But you had a block last week, impasse protection, let Kelce have a big play. You had the block in the Seahawks game, let Pat run for a first down. That ball that you and Xavier downed at the one and Las Vegas. That was awesome. You’ve kind of talked about it. It’s all the little things. It seems like you’re a complete football player, not just a running back. How much pride do you take in that?

00:27:21
Speaker 1: A lot of pride in that.

00:27:23
Speaker 4: When I first started playing football, I feel like at a young age, you learn how to play a lot of different positions. So I’ve always been an offense and defense guy. I played safety, did things of that nature in high school. I remember specifically Coach Gunderson, my high school coach, we played against a team called Cooper. And I was on kickoff, and this is my senior year, And I was a starting running back, but we had a return taken back on us. And I’m like, coach, I was on kickoff and he took me off that play before. And then they scored. I’m like, coach, like you got to put me back on kickoff. Like I’m trying to be out there every time. So I think that’s where the importance of like doing whatever it takes came from because special teams is super important. Field position is important. So I really love the fact that, you know, we can go down there, score, and then I can go on kickoff and go make a tackle, you know, to pin them deep.

00:28:11
Speaker 1: I love that feeling.

00:28:12
Speaker 3: So.

00:28:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just love special teams a lot.

00:28:15
Speaker 1: Matt and I are both curious, your touchdown celebration.

00:28:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell us about that.

00:28:18
Speaker 1: Did your brother choreograph? You got to have a choreographer here. And how much did you rehearse this?

00:28:25
Speaker 4: So I haven’t made any like dance TikToks since I’ve been in the league. So I do watch some. And so it was like a trend that was trending for a while. And I’ve always like, I like dancing. So I practice sometimes by myself, like dancing. And it was before the game, right before the game, that song, that i danced to like i heard it in my my headphones it had played randomly on my playlist and i played it like three times so in my head i kind of already like was in the mode to dance but i was trying to stay focused the same time so when i got in the end zone it was just a chance for me to show that but it was a little bit too long i probably should have cut it a little shorter because kelsey had his hand out for a while and i’m like nah i gotta make sure i celebrate with my teammates but that was a great moment man i just i like dancing in my free time so.

00:29:08
Speaker 1: Yeah Can we keep that on your playlist this week?

00:29:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, I probably should keep the same playlist going.

00:29:15
Speaker 2: Last question for me. Tough game, obviously. Tough result. What was the message from Coach Reed in the locker room after the game?

00:29:22
Speaker 4: Honestly, just to bounce back and we can control everything that happened negatively in that game. Most of the time, it’s on us as players to go out there and fix it. I feel like it’s never the opponent. It’s always us making mistakes that beat ourselves.

00:29:37
Speaker 1: You know?

00:29:38
Speaker 4: And so that was his message, just staying together as a team. And I know that, like, we have a lot of relentless guys here. That’s what I’ve learned just by being here. There’s a lot of tough-minded guys in the room, starting with, like, the leaders like Pat and Kelsey. Those guys have obviously played in a lot of different football games, and they know the talent we have. So it’s just, like, meeting our full potential. You know, I feel like we have so much potential. We have young guys.

00:29:58
Speaker 1: We have a lot of rookies. that are here.

00:30:00
Speaker 4: So we’re learning little by little that every play matters. And Coach EB talked about it too, the importance of every single play, because you never know what play is going to change the game. And obviously, like you guys know, it comes down to a couple of plays in football. So just making sure we approach every single play the same and just don’t beat ourselves and we’ll be fine.

00:30:20
Speaker 1: I’m not sure there’s a player yet in the league that’s caught a pass for a touchdown, ran for a touchdown, returned a kick for a touchdown, blocked a kick for a touchdown, but it’s coming. Our bet is on Emma Johnson. Yes, sir. So I don’t know if Emma Hastings’ grandma is a kingdom defender, if she’s ever listened or watched the podcast, but- I hope so. Grandma, stand down. Take five steps behind me because right now I might be the president of the Emma Johnson fan club.

00:30:45
Speaker 2: I told our whole preseason crew, like Ari and Trent and Kimmy when they first came in, they were like, hey, give us a lowdown on some of the rookies. And I said, Emma Johnson is going to be your favorite player by the end of this. And we’re seeing that. I just love how he plays the game, how he carries himself. And like I said earlier, first big game of many for him.

00:31:04
Speaker 1: I’m giving this prophecy. I’ll give it again. He’s still going to return a kick for a touchdown. Oh, yeah. He’s going to block a kick maybe for a touchdown. He’s not done with scrimmage down big plays. And he’s a perfect complement to K-9. Yeah. Because you’re just tagging out a guy that can force missed tackles and bringing another guy that can force missed tackles. He’s got one of the more wicked stiff arms I’ve seen in a long time.

00:31:28
Speaker 3: Yep.

00:31:29
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you heard my play-by-play call on the 73-yard touchdown. There’s one dude back. It’s that Taylor Rapp guy. I’m like, he has no shot.

00:31:37
Speaker 2: That’s who it was, Taylor Rapp.

00:31:38
Speaker 1: It was Taylor Rapp. And so I went back and looked at that five times.

00:31:42
Speaker 2: No shot.

00:31:42
Speaker 1: So I go, there’s one guy back. He’s got no chance. That guy’s going to just like throw him into the earth and molten lava to score. So anyway, it was just exciting to see. Now, we have to turn the page. It is a long run. Think about how we started– this segment. Matt was a brilliant cross-country runner at Blue Valley North.

00:32:02
Speaker 2: I was not brilliant. I was a cross-country runner.

00:32:04
Speaker 1: And I was the guy in track that was not fast or not slow. So what do you do with that guy? You try to do something with them to try to get some points. They put me in the 3,200 meter run. Ill-fated.

00:32:16
Speaker 3: What?

00:32:16
Speaker 1: Ill-fated attempt.

00:32:17
Speaker 2: That’s brutal.

00:32:18
Speaker 1: Ill-fated attempt. We’re not even at the 1,600 meter mark, right? We’re not even halfway. That’ll be at the end of the Jets game. But this Jets team They have gained my respect. And it’s not just coach speak, so to speak. Two and six on the year. But when I look at the Jets team, there’s more here that meets the eye. And I do respect Geno Smith because he had a brutal last couple of years. 32 picks. He’s 12 touchdowns over three interceptions. And he had the best start of seven games of double-digit touchdowns and only two interceptions in Jets history. That goes back to Joe Namath. So there’s more to this Jets team that maybe meets the eye.

00:33:00
Speaker 2: I think they’re a lot more competitive than people might realize. You look at their record and they’re 2-6 and think, oh, this team isn’t very good. They don’t have good players, all that. It’s not the case because they’re 1-5 in one-score games this year. Each of their last four games have come down to a touchdown or less, and they’ve lost three of them. Look at last week against the Raiders. They were in that game. They had a double-digit lead at multiple times in that game. They end up losing. Now, they’ve really struggled defensively. in the fourth quarter, and in the final two minutes of halves, really under Aaron Glenn in general. So this is a pretty remarkable stat. In the last 25 games, they’ve been outscored 110-9 in those situations, so two minutes left in the first half or second half. They were outscored 17-3 from late in the third quarter through the end of last week’s game. So they were in control against the Raiders, ended up being outscored 17-3 the rest of the way. I think for us, We were so good in the fourth quarter and at closing out games early in the year during the 5-0 start. Not so much in Denver. They outscore us 15-0 in the fourth quarter. We make a bunch of errors. That’s why we lost the game, was self-inflicted things in the fourth quarter. Just can’t let that happen here against this Jets team that might look like they’re not very good on the surface, but they got a lot of playmakers that we’ll talk about. And they’re dangerous, much more dangerous than your average 2-6 team.

00:34:20
Speaker 1: For sure. And you can’t leak oil in this game. And the double-digit penalties for over 100 yards in penalty yards, that’s equal seven points. But it’s also the plays you did not get. We talk about it every week. That’s the hidden yards. Same with the Jets, though. In scoring drives given up this year, they’re near the bottom of the league. Only Buffalo is worse in the scoring drives where a first down kept the drive alive as a result of penalties.

00:34:46
Speaker 2: Can I add one thing on the penalties from last week?

00:34:48
Speaker 1: For the Chiefs? Because they’re 27th in the league right now. Yeah. Same category.

00:34:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, right there with us. But the Chiefs last week, you mentioned how the 100 yards equals a touchdown. Well, I did the math on this. If you go back and look at not just penalties, but 15-yard penalties, specifically an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty or a face mask, those penalties alone led to 18 points for Denver directly. Those are mental things. Those are disciplined things that you can control. That’s not just like, oh, holding. It happens in a split second. You can’t blame a guy for that or offside or whatever it may be. 15-yard mental discipline things directly led to 18 points for Denver. You can’t let that happen against any team, especially not a division opponent, but certainly against the Jets, who are more competitive than the record indicates. We’ve got to clean that up for sure.

00:35:36
Speaker 1: I so admire your knowledge of everything. You had the Philippines in the right hemisphere and I did not.

00:35:40
Speaker 3: Did I?

00:35:41
Speaker 2: I don’t know if I did.

00:35:41
Speaker 1: I don’t know, but I’ll give you credit. Okay. All right. You brought it to us that it’s not Laos, it’s Lao, but only by the Laotians, right?

00:35:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, we learned it from our guy out there in Lao.

00:35:52
Speaker 1: But in Lao. Yeah. And I know you follow Wichita City League football, don’t you?

00:35:58
Speaker 2: Only because of you. You keep me informed on these things. On the bus, on the way to the airport before we left for the game, Mitch is going through all of the playoffs in 6A, 5A, 4A, six-man football, keeping me posted. So I appreciate that.

00:36:11
Speaker 1: Six-man’s huge. I love it. And all throughout the Chiefs’ kingdom. But in Wichita, some consider him, and I would agree, the best running back to come out of Wichita since Barry Sanders. His Brees Hall, Wichita Northwest High School, the Grizzlies, by the way, have a key playoff game this week against the Wichita Southeast Buffaloes. Just so we know that, got that clear. Brees Hall was incredible at Iowa State. Yeah. He’s been an outstanding pro. Now it looks like Brees Hall will finally be back off injured reserve. However, the Jets have Braylon Allen, the former Wisconsin star, who has been really good. Three 100-yard rushing games in the last four. If you’re Aaron Glenn, oh, it is a dilemma of riches there. But how do you handle this with Brees Hall and now Braylon Allen, who looks like he’s the real deal?

00:37:05
Speaker 2: Creates kind of a strange dynamic where Brees Hall is their guy. There’s possibilities they would trade him last year during the season. They didn’t do it. They gave him an extension in the offseason. He rushed for over 1,000 yards last year. He’s their guy. Been really solid for a long time there. But he gets hurt. And talk about a guy making the most of an opportunity in Braylon Allen. He’s been unbelievable for them. You mentioned at least 100 yards in three of his last four. He rushed for 147 yards last week against Las Vegas. And it’s interesting. So he’s a big dude. Now he’s six foot one, 235 pounds. He idolized Derrick Henry growing up. So he wants to be that kind of player, but he’s also good outside the tackles. And there’s next gen stats on this. He rushed for 85 yards outside the tackles last week, 91 yards outside the tackles the week before. So it’s interesting. He also has 11 runs of 15 or more yards this year. Only Jameer Gibbs and James Cook have more. So do you take carries away from that guy? I don’t know. It’s a really interesting dilemma because Brees Hall comes back. He is your guy. He’s your bell cow. But Braylon Allen is one of the primary reasons they’ve been in all these games. We talk about the one score games. He’s right in the middle of all of those. So I’m curious what they’ll do because taking carries away from that guy seems like a bad idea. But when you have Brees Hall on your team, you kind of have to do it. So we’ll see.

00:38:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, we’re going to talk to Ari here in a minute. We’ll get more into the Jets. But I do respect Frank Reich. I think Frank Reich has rejuvenated Geno Smith. But Frank Rack will try to think of a way. How do I get Braylon Allen and Brees Hall on the field at the same time? Because Brees Hall is a very good receiver out of the backfield. Yeah, he is.

00:38:41
Speaker 2: And the Jets offense, like we’ll talk about with Ari, has moved the ball this season. They have good players. Garrett Wilson’s on this team. Kenyon Sadiq out of Oregon at tight end is a player we liked a lot in the draft.

00:38:52
Speaker 1: A.D. Mitchell. Omar Cooper Jr. We loved him at Indiana.

00:38:55
Speaker 2: A bunch of good players. And they’ve moved the football this year. The issue has been red zone. This is the worst red zone offense in the NFL. I think about it, all these one score games, if they turn just a few of those field goals into touchdowns, might be talking about a 500 or winning record with the Jets. So I’m with you. And if we see Allen, we see Hall on the field at the same time or either one of them, we got to find a way to contain this Jets running game because every game they’ve been in this year, they run for a bunch of yards. We have to shut down that running game on Sunday.

00:39:24
Speaker 1: They’re actually second in the league in the amount of runs that get four plus yards or more. in this game. So your point is well taken. Another point well taken or points well taken is when we travel to the West and find the Wolf howling in the West. So let’s do our weekly visit with Ari Wolf out West.

00:39:43
Speaker 3: Gentlemen, great to see your faces. It’s less than 48 hours from the Chiefs-Broncos game, and I am still recovering. But our task here is to talk about the AFC West, so let’s dive right in. Let’s talk about the Las Vegas Raiders. They fly across the country to take on a struggling New York Jets team. Kirk Cousins leads them to a 38-33 victory. They are now 4-4 on the season. Cousins put together another solid game. Brock Bowers, we all know, is Matt McMullen’s favorite non-Chief. He had a monster game with two receiving touchdowns. They’re now ninth in the AFC. I feel like every week with the Raiders, I’ve been going up and down. Look, they’re supposed to win that game if they want to contend. But I still give them credit for going across the country. The defense didn’t play well again. The defense isn’t very good, but the offense bailed them out. So I’m going to leave this to you, Mitch. Here’s my question about the Raiders. Is Kirk Cousins the second best free agent signing in the league after Cana?

00:40:43
Speaker 1: Ooh, I’d have to think and do some research on that one, but he’s in the top five, I would say. And he’s been perfect to do what we did with Alex Smith, right? He’s given them a chance to win. But that defense, Ari, I can’t look past those guys. The Jets, and we play them this week and we’ll talk about them, had gone what, 11 straight games. They had less than 25 points. And then they put 33 on the board there. And The Raiders also got a 95-yard kickoff return. So if you look at their point total of 35, seven of those are non-offensive points. I’m going to give Kirk Cousins a lot of credit here, and yet that kickoff return was big. Max Crosby’s got to be looking around like, what are we doing, guys? Because that back seven has got to figure it out, or they’re not going to win many more games. Yeah.

00:41:36
Speaker 3: All right.

00:41:36
Speaker 2: They’ve allowed at least 30 points in five straight games since week four, which was our game against them out there in Vegas. They have the worst defense in the NFL in terms of scoring defense. So, I mean, Kirk is doing great. It’s kind of what we expected talking about their game going into it last week is they can score points. It’s just, can they stop anybody? And they’re able to beat the Jets, but I do question their ability as a potential playoff team if their defense really can’t get a stop. So, Kirk’s playing great. They have weapons on offense, but I just don’t know about that defense.

00:42:08
Speaker 3: Fair enough. I like to give Kirk some loves because, again, I was not a Kirk Cousins guy. Then they featured him on the quarterback show on Netflix, and I’m like, I like this guy. So we gave Kirk his love. The Raiders are 4-4. All right, now to the Chargers coming off their bye week, gentlemen. They had a road game at SoFi. They lose 24-9 to the Rams. For most of the first half, the defense was solid. They lead 9-3. They don’t score another point. They lose again. They’re now 0-7. So my question is, coming out of the bye week, I was expecting more. What was going to look different? What was Coach Mike McDaniel going to do that made this offense look different than the first six games? Matt, let me start with you here. I was sort of disappointed. There just seems to be a lack of imagination. Now, granted, there are great skill guys. They haven’t protected Herbert well, but I guess I expected there to be more improvement in this last game. What was your takeaway?

00:43:04
Speaker 2: Well, 0-7 is just crazy for a team that I think a lot of people expected to compete for a playoff berth. It’s crazy. I think what’s even more so than that is they’re not competitive in these games. Looking at last year, we had a bad season. We all know that. We only won six games, but we were competitive in every game we played until Mahomes got hurt. Even after Mahomes got hurt, we were still competitive. The Chargers just aren’t competitive right now. They’ve scored single-digit Point totals in each of the last two games, and to your point, coming out of the bye week, only scoring nine points. It’s just nuts. And the thing is, and we’ll talk about it in a bit, but their schedule doesn’t really get any easier. They have the Texans this week. They’ll get the Ravens without Lamar in a few weeks. Then the Jets, but the Jets have shown like they’re a competitive team. So I just don’t know. They get the Dolphins later this year. It’s just hard to look at the Chargers schedule and to say, oh, that’s a gimme for them, just based on the way they’re playing. So Weird year for them and a lot of soul searching going on in the offseason. But my question with them, and we’re shooting this on Tuesday for those listening, is are they going to start selling off pieces? We’ll find out in the next few days.

00:44:09
Speaker 1: Ari, they’re historic. No other team in the NFL in history, this league goes back to 1921, has started 0-7 after having 11-plus wins the year before. It’s never happened. And the Chargers are doing it. I agree with Matt, but this feels like living in Pompeii, looking at Mount Vesuvius like a week before going, I wonder if that’s ever going to blow. Because it sure feels like we got some volcanic ash coming soon.

00:44:41
Speaker 3: All right, here’s my only real concern. I mean, I don’t care if the Chargers win another game. What I don’t want is Jeremiah Smith, the Ohio statewide receiver, coming to the AFC West. And it appears at this moment, he is certainly a candidate to be the number one pick if the draft was held today. the Chargers would hold that pick. So I kind of want the Chargers maybe win a game or two, maybe three games, just so they don’t have the number one pick, because I don’t think we want to defend Jeremiah Smith. Not that the Chiefs couldn’t do it, but that guy is a beast if you’ve been watching college football. All right, let’s move on to the game that was both heartbreaking, exciting. It had all the drama. Chiefs-Broncos, part two of the 2026 season. the Chiefs end up losing 28-24 despite being the better team for the majority of the game. The biggest revelation in the game for people outside of Chiefs Kingdom was Emmitt Johnson. I think for those of us that got to know him during training camp in the preseason, we thought this guy is too good to be true. And in the game against the Broncos, you could make a case he was the best player on the field. And that includes all the superstars that were out there. He was spectacular. And I’m not sure whether I like him more on the field or off the field. We can get into the details of what went right and what went wrong, but let’s just take a moment and talk about Emmitt. I know you guys talked to him on the show. I got a chance to listen to the interview. He is everything you want in a football player. He’s so humble, but his on-field play, he really stood out to me as a guy who’s going to be an exceptional talent. And I’m going to lead to Mitch with this. Going into the off-season, The running back room could have been considered the room that needed the most work. Now, in less than half a season, you could make a case the running back room is the best in the National Football League. So kudos to Brett Veach, and what a turnaround for that running back room, which is now one of the best in football.

00:46:34
Speaker 1: The best thing you can have in football at any level, including the National Football League, and it’s what Matt and I discussed earlier in the podcast, and we’ll get to the Jets here in a second, but the fact that Braylon Allen has turned into a deal… and they get Brees Hall back is actually a huge plus. For Ken Walker III to be the bell cow and the alpha dog here, but to have Emmitt Johnson right behind him is a gigantic asset for this team. But now it goes plus, plus, plus with Emmitt because he is one of our better special teams players. When I watch the video and review what he does on coverage, and you heard it in the interview we had with him, He can return a kick. He can cover a kick. He can blow some dude up. They’ve even put him at gunner. There’s nothing he can’t do. And so, again, it’s hard to find Emmett Johnson’s anymore on the earth. And we’ve got him. And I mentioned this earlier in the podcast. We have a gal named Emma Hastings whose grandma thinks Emmett Johnson was the greatest thing ever. Should have been the 1-1 pick. And I was joking about it and kidding her. Okay. He might be the 1-1 pick. If we do a redraft of the 2026 draft, Emma Johnson may end up in the first round.

00:47:49
Speaker 2: Ari, what did I tell you during our little debrief before training camp?

00:47:52
Speaker 3: You told me I was going to fall in love with Emma Johnson.

00:47:55
Speaker 1: Yep.

00:47:56
Speaker 3: And I got to say, he’s right there with 15, right? We’re barely into his rookie year. He’s amazing. And just the overall person that comes with the package and what kind of locker room influence he’s going to have as he gets more tenure in the league. What a blessing to have a player like Emma Johnson on the Chiefs. All right, so let’s get back in to the game itself. The Chiefs were up by double digits in the fourth quarter. When the Broncos scored to take the lead, and I looked at the amount of time on the clock and the two timeouts, I thought, this is the thing that’s the most exciting part of being a Chiefs fan. And really at our core, that’s what I consider myself, is a fan. I’m lucky that I get to work with all of you, but really at my core, I’m a fan. When Patrick Mahomes has the football late in a game, He gets your attention like nothing else in sports. And I make this analogy all the time. You’ve heard it. I compare him to Michael Jordan because at the end of a game when Michael Jordan has the ball, it’s like nothing else in the world matters. Well, that’s how I feel about Patrick Mahomes engineering a drive late in a game. It feels like it’s just going to happen.

00:49:00
Speaker 2: Now, look, it happened.

00:49:02
Speaker 3: And then the penalty against Jalen Moore brings it back. And they don’t end up converting on fourth downs. But I want to stick to the positive. The way that drive happened, the big return followed by big plays and Mahomes looking in total command of the offense. Yes, it’s disappointing. But wow, there’s not many fielders. in football like Patrick Mahomes having the ball late in a fourth quarter down on the road.

00:49:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was a microcosm of the game itself where we did a lot of things right in that game. We had more first downs, more third down conversions, more rushing yards, more passing yards. more time of possession. We didn’t turn the ball over and we lost. We did a lot of things right in that game, but we just didn’t finish it. And that drive is the same kind of thing where we did so many things right on that drive. And I mean, look at the Broncos sideline. Look at what Bo Nix said after the game. He thought we were going to win, but he just couldn’t finish it. So it’s tough. Mitch and I have talked a lot about it. It’s one of those that It’s going to stick in our mind for a little bit, but the beautiful thing about our team is they’ve moved on from it, and it’s all about what do we learn from that, and how do we get after it the next week? So, we’ll be all right, but yeah, that’s a tough one to swallow.

00:50:11
Speaker 1: What we overlook is the defense he did it against, because that was a defense with Jonathan Cooper and Nick Benito and Pastor Tan II. Now, they’re missing their safeties, I got it, but that front and Sir Tan, we all know what they’ve done, and they’ve had the history there. So, to be able to be in control of that game for most of the game. Uh, and I’m with you. The, the key, uh, sequence of the game was 13, 13 to go in the game. They’re backed up. The Broncos at their own 20, they get 61 yards and five plays in nanoseconds. That’s when that game started to move the compass a bit, but give Emmett Johnson credit that 44 yard kickoff return. That sets everything up. That’s when Matt and I were in the booth going, everything’s in play right here. And, um, If they get first and goal again at the two, I think they’re going to make it in the next time. That’s the belief you have in Patrick and this offense.

00:51:07
Speaker 3: I’m with you. It normally feels like it’s inevitable when he has the ball late.

00:51:10
Speaker 1: All right.

00:51:10
Speaker 3: That is a look back at week eight. Now let’s fast forward to the AFC West in week nine. The Raiders defense, we just documented it. They’ve struggled. The Niners offense, one of the best in football. Brock Purdy, an MVP candidate. Add in the fact If the Niners are coming off their only loss of the season at Atlanta, they’ve had the bye week for Coach Shanahan, who I think is a brilliant coach to get things ironed out, a chance to get a little bit more healthy. This looks to me like a 49ers blowout over the Raiders. I expect them to score well over 30 points. Check me if I’m wrong, but this to me seems like a very challenging matchup for the Raiders this week. And let’s start with you, Mitch.

00:51:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, the 49ers I feel like should have moved to Reno or Carson City for this game. Um, Just so you’ve got the rivalry. I do miss the whole Battle of the Bay kind of thing. The Niners, though, have done really good things and had a slew of injuries. It’s hard to argue against them being the best team in the league right now in either conference. There’s just a lot of different ways they can beat you. And now getting guys back make them more and more scary. I just can’t see the Raiders keeping pace with the 49ers right now, who I see screaming into a one seed in the NFC.

00:52:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, not a lot to say about this one. I just don’t have a lot of confidence the Raiders defense can slow down the Niners offense, no matter how many players the Niners are missing. So if the Raiders defense can find a way to get some stops, maybe it’s a game, but I’m with Mitch. I think the Niners probably roll on this one.

00:52:43
Speaker 3: All right, let’s move on to the Chargers are at home against the Texans. So it’s fun in sports when you predict things early in the year and You think you’re really on point? You really know what you’re talking about? Well, it turns out that I didn’t know what I was talking about this whole season. Because if you’d have told me the Chargers and the Texans would have two wins combined at this point, I wouldn’t have believed you. So I’m not sure anyone should listen to any opinions I have when it comes to the Texans. Because they’re the most confusing team in the league to me. Because on paper, you look at the talent. You look at what they’ve got defensively. Look, DJ Shroud, it’s a mixed bag. But when he’s good, he’s pretty darn good. And yeah, he does struggle. Sometimes late in games, he makes decisions. You’re like, what is he thinking? But how are they 2-5? They’re playing an 0-17. This is a game I think probably, you know, the TV people who pick the games like, oh, we’re going to send, you know, Nance and JJ Watt to this game. Well, they might have thought that at the start of the season. Now this game Seems like it barely a blip on the radar. Matt, let’s start with you. First of all, the shot, because I know you like the Texans a lot too at the start of the season. What has gone wrong and do you expect the Texans to win in LA?

00:53:53
Speaker 2: Well, I think the primary reason I like the Texans so much early in the year is their defense. And watching their defense last year, we saw it in person. I mean, every single level, their defensive front felt like the best in football. Their linebacker core was fast, athletic, and would hit. And their secondary, there was no weaknesses. with guys like Stingley and Lasseter, Jalen Petrie, just really impressive. Bullock, like so many good players in their secondary. And for some reason this year, it just has not worked. And they’ve given up a bunch of points and a bunch of big plays. To their credit, though, they’ve been in almost every game they’ve played. And I just can’t say that about the Chargers. So that’s why I think the Texans should get their third win of the year. But it is crazy to be saying, you know, they’re really fighting for their lives right now. And they have to really what? lose one or two games the rest of the season if they want to have a legitimate shot at the playoffs. So the Texans, I think, win this game in the battle of disappointing teams. But yeah, weird year for Houston for sure.

00:54:51
Speaker 1: A couple years ago, Matt, was it Jacksonville or Houston, I said, watch out for these guys. They’re going to make a rush. It might have been Houston. Yeah. If there is a two-win team that can make a big push and challenge even for a But somebody has to win the AFC South and the NFC South. It’s required by law that you must win it. I could look for Houston to go on a riptide and rip off about eight or nine games. I know they’ve been inconsistent, but the pieces are all there. If Stroud plays like the Stroud we saw beating the Chargers in the playoffs a couple years ago, look out for Houston. We might be talking entirely different about them in the second week of December.

00:55:37
Speaker 3: Well, if that’s what we’re saying, then we can then come back to our beginning of the year part of this podcast to talk about how we always knew the Texans had a chance to be great.

00:55:45
Speaker 1: Yep. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. All right. Is an NFL network doing a feature on the Chargers, how they could win 10 in a row and possibly eke in to get a wildcard bid? I don’t know. What a story. The only team ever in NFL history to go 0-7 after winning 11-plus and then ripping off 10 in a row to go 10-7 to barely not make the playoffs.

00:56:09
Speaker 3: Now, just so you know, guys, I live pretty close to Hollywood, and if somebody turned in that script, that would be a no thank you from the studio. I don’t think anybody’s behind them winning double-digit games in a row. But, hey, they can all live to dream. So if you’re a Charger fan, keep the faith, but it’s not going well. All right, let’s get to our game.

00:56:26
Speaker 1: Are there Chargers fans?

00:56:27
Speaker 3: The Jets and the Chiefs.

00:56:28
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:56:30
Speaker 3: Not many of them. Not many. There’s just not many of them. Boy, it’s a tough day to be a Chargers fan every day of this season. All right, let’s start with the Chiefs offense. Versus the Jets defense. By the way, you guys haven’t gotten like angry or surly today. It’s a lot of levity. I like what you guys are doing, man. Take the tough loss and we’re turning it all positive. It’s going to be a great week. Speaking of the great week, I think the Chiefs offense has a chance to have a monster game against this Jets defense. The Jets defense isn’t terrible. 16th overall. They’ve done pretty well against the pass that they have struggled in the run game. 21st in the league on the ground. To me, this just sets up as a perfect opportunity for the Chiefs to kind of click on all cylinders and find their way offensively. I guess the only thing I caution, there’s been so much emotion spent. I mean, there’s a reservoir of emotion that you have for the whole season. I realize different games take more out of you. I think one of the things I love the most about the Chiefs is their leadership. They seem to prepare for the next week as though the week before has never happened, right? They can just change their mindset and move forward. So I don’t think that there’s going to be an emotional letdown, but obviously losing on the road, a division game, you’re coming home in a game that you’re favored. So it does, you know, it makes you a little bit nervous, but knowing what’s going on in that building and knowing you guys are there, it should be good. But let’s start with you, Mitch. Is this the game where the Chiefs offense once again shows it’s one of the top offenses in football?

00:57:55
Speaker 1: Possibly, and expected, but the Jets can pressure the quarterback. They’re one of the top teams in the league at pressures. And David Bailey, when he plays, in their two wins, he’s got four and a half sacks. So he can disrupt a game. Now, the Jets had the long national nightmare was over when the Minka Fitzpatrick got an interception for the Jets because they went a year and a half without an interception. They set an all-time NFL record last year going 17 weeks and no picks. But There are capable defenders on this Jets team. But generally, I feel the same. I’ve actually felt the way coming out of the Seattle game. And even though the Chiefs didn’t get to the red zone, Ari, they moved the ball on the Seahawks. They were in the plus half of the field against that really good defense. It goes to Matt’s point of finishing. You have to finish drives, finish plays, finish quarters, finish games. And if the Chiefs can’t do that, then they should be in control of this game. But it’s completing the task.

00:58:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ari, looking at this Jets defense, they have talent, but lately, particularly, they have struggled. They’ve allowed at least 26 points in three straight games. It’s interesting with their overall numbers, particularly the past defense numbers. I think they’re skewed a bit because they’ve played multiple games and like driving rainstorms. Like I feel like on the game logs that should be highlighted, like was a torrential downpour.

00:59:15
Speaker 1: Right.

00:59:15
Speaker 2: But still, I mean, they have good players and on the defensive line, David Bailey being maybe the best one. But yeah, they struggled against the run this year. So they allowed 232 rushing yards to Chicago, 148 to New England and 156 to Miami. The Chiefs the last couple weeks against Denver more so than Seattle, but we haven’t seen the explosive running game we saw early in the season. Hopefully it returns this week because I think there’s going to be opportunities for it.

00:59:40
Speaker 1: And always look at any level. If a team has got a really good pass defense statistically, immediately look at the run defense. If the run defense is giving up a gob of yards, teams are going, we don’t have to pass. And so that can be a skewed stat of going, well, they’re pretty good against the pass. Well, no teams aren’t even passing the ball. They don’t have to.

01:00:00
Speaker 3: You don’t have to. There’s a lot less risk in running the football. All right, let’s shift it. The Jets offense versus the Chiefs defense. The Jets do run the ball pretty well. You mentioned Braylon Allen, former Wisconsin Badger. Got to give him some love. He’s a load guy. 6’1, 235 pounds. If they really commit to giving him the football, tackling to me will be everything for the Chiefs because he’s a big guy. He’s fast. He’s strong. He’s got a good set of skills, Braylon Allen. Talk to me a little bit about the challenge for the Chiefs defense in limiting the Jets on the ground. Do you expect Steve Spagnuolo to really stack the box and force Geno to throw the football? Let’s start with you, Matt.

01:00:41
Speaker 2: Well, I don’t know if you want to do that because the Jets have some pretty good receivers.

01:00:45
Speaker 1: Look at A.D.

01:00:46
Speaker 2: Mitchell last week, had a great game against the Raiders. Garrett Wilson’s a star. They have some great tight ends as well. We like Sadiq a lot from Oregon in the draft, and Mason Taylor is a good player as well. So They have some weapons in the passing game, and Gino’s off to a much better start this year than he was last year. So I think you have to find a way to stop the run without loading the box. And for what it’s worth, the Chiefs have done a pretty good job of that this year, particularly early in the season. Did a good job against the run. Did a great job of it against the Broncos until later in the game. So you’ve got to find a way to slow down Hall and Allen. I’m curious about the dynamic with those two, how– If Allen doesn’t have the full workload, does he still find the same rhythm he’s been finding over the last five games? We’ll see. Shut down the running game or contain it best you can. Let’s get some pressure on Geno. Geno’s been sacked the second most of any quarterback in the NFL. Only Deshaun Watson’s been sacked more times. We all know about the Chiefs right now not getting a lot of sacks. Let’s change that on Sunday.

01:01:46
Speaker 1: Frank Reich has done an incredible job with Geno Smith. Already threw 32 picks yesterday. the last two years combined. This year, he’s thrown three in a two and six start. Now, going back to your question about the run game, and I’m going to throw in another threat in the receiving game, and you and I, Matt, both liked Omar Cooper Jr. coming out of Indiana. He was the first receiver in Jets history to have 100 yards back-to-back and a touchdown in each of those games, and the first guy to have 100 yards receiving back-to-back since Al Toon way back when. They might have been the New York Titans then. But the runner… And when you look at Braylon Allen.

01:02:21
Speaker 3: I like the Altoon reference, by the way, another former Badger.

01:02:24
Speaker 1: We can’t get enough Wisconsin guys in this segment for you. I love this. The profile of Braylon Allen is very similar to, wait for it, Jonah Coleman of the Denver Broncos. Very similar style back in that kind of bruising style, but still athletic enough that they’re not just plowing over you. And so it gets your attention. And then I’m going to throw in the Brees Hall thing, right? If Brees Hall can play, those two might be on the field at the same time. You’re going to have to tackle all day long, and Matt’s right. The Chiefs were tackling great in that game until they weren’t. And when they weren’t, it came at the most critical time of the game. So again, the story here, finish. You’ve got to tackle all 60 minutes, especially against the backs like a Braylon Allen or a Brees Hall.

01:03:11
Speaker 3: All right, I like it. Looking forward to seeing the Chiefs and the Jets. It is now time for final thoughts. Let’s start with you, Mitch.

01:03:19
Speaker 1: Final thoughts here is kind of the theme we’ve had of this podcast. Did you run at Wisconsin Stout? Did you run long distance? Wisconsin? Yeah, did you?

01:03:30
Speaker 3: I did not run long distance at Wisconsin Stout.

01:03:32
Speaker 1: I tried. I was terrible at it. Matt was good. He was Blue Valley North Mustang. Not good. We have to keep this in perspective. The final thoughts here, we like to treat every week as if, oh, my gosh, the curtain has dropped on the story. We’re not even halfway through the race. This game will be halfway through the marathon. Run the race. Now, you’re behind in running the race, but run each race. Run each leg of the race, and so the next leg is the Jets. You have to be disciplined in that regard, but people want to kind of come to conclusions every week, and that’s part of the problem in the NFL. So just keep running the race.

01:04:10
Speaker 2: Ari, my final thought is not at all a serious football topic. It’s the fact that Mitch and I both went to the Colorado Avalanche game the night before the Chiefs game.

01:04:20
Speaker 3: Okay.

01:04:20
Speaker 2: And they were playing the Calgary Flames.

01:04:23
Speaker 1: Okay.

01:04:23
Speaker 2: And I like to think of myself as kind of like an NHL free agent. I’d love to give my all to an NHL team. And I haven’t just quite found that team. And what’s funny about the Flames is if you really look at their jerseys, they have our exact color scheme. They have the C on the front.

01:04:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:04:41
Speaker 2: I was there with my in-laws and my mother-in-law tries to be so supportive, you know, trying to be friends with everybody, my Bronco father-in-law, me, who obviously wants the Chiefs to win. And she’s like, look at all the Chiefs fans at the Avs game. I’m like, thanks, Mary, but those are Flames fans. Those aren’t Chiefs jerseys. Those are Flames jerseys. But anyway, Mitch and I have decided maybe we should start a fandom for the Calgary Flames. You know, go Flames.

01:05:07
Speaker 1: That’s my final thought. If we do become that, I want to go dressed to every game like those 10 dudes that were all dressed like the Royal Canadian… Mounted police. There were 10 of them all sitting together like that. If we’re Flames fans, that’s what I’m wearing to every game. Let’s do it.

01:05:25
Speaker 3: Let’s go all in. All right. I enjoyed both of those final thoughts. Mine is, you know, I’m not an analytics guy. I’m a trust the eyes kind of guy. And what brought me to this final thought was Emmitt Johnson. Because as you said, if they did a redraft of the 2026 draft, we know Emmitt might be a first round pick. Now, some of his measurables at the Combine weren’t off the charts. But I think for those of you that love football, trust your eyes. Watch a guy play. If he’s in high school, college, the NFL, when you watch, there are things you can’t measure. Things like heart, things like grit, things like want to. So just a reminder to everyone who gets so obsessed with measurables, analytics, to me at the end of the day, a great football player is a lot more than those numbers. And we saw perfect evidence. of that this past week, watching Emma Johnson really emerge and show the whole NFL what he’s capable of as a fifth-round pick. Well, that’s going to do it for Out West. I love you guys. Looking forward to the Chiefs getting a W this week against the Jets. Hope everybody has a great week.

01:06:31
Speaker 1: So, Ari, as usual, is all over it. The division now, though, looks like it’s some separation here. And the Chiefs are trailing the Broncos just by a whisker here as we move on. And if the Chiefs can continue to win, the Broncos do have a bye week, so it could be tied soon.

01:06:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, it’ll get interesting. You know, talking about the Chargers, though, does provide perspective on everything that’s going on. Being 0-7 when you have expectations, I don’t mean to laugh, but that’s tough.

01:06:57
Speaker 1: That’s historic. Yeah. As we chatted with Ari. The mailbag, it’s now a new thing on Defending the Kingdom. What do we have?

01:07:04
Speaker 4: Yes.

01:07:05
Speaker 1: Okay.

01:07:05
Speaker 2: So one quick update on a mailbag question from last week. So we always shoot these on Tuesdays.

01:07:11
Speaker 1: So it’s tricky.

01:07:12
Speaker 2: They often post on like Thursdays. So if stuff happens in between, you know, we can’t react to it.

01:07:17
Speaker 1: So a major trade could happen.

01:07:19
Speaker 2: That is true. We’re shooting this on Tuesday. The trade deadline is coming up. Something could happen and we have no idea. So if it does happen, this is Tuesday.

01:07:26
Speaker 1: We don’t know.

01:07:27
Speaker 2: But anyway, last week we were talking about Omar Norman Lott.

01:07:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:07:31
Speaker 2: Someone asked if his practice window had opened, if there was an update. When we shot this last Tuesday, there was no update. And then immediately on Wednesday, his practice window opened. So just an update on that. Omar Norman Lott’s practice window has opened. That’s great news. He practiced last week. Didn’t play in the game, obviously. We now have two more weeks to evaluate how he’s doing in practice. And then we’ll decide what to do from there. If you activate him or if he goes on season-ending IR. So stay tuned on that. But there is some good news on Omar. His practice window has opened.

01:08:00
Speaker 1: And he could come back at just the right time because it’ll be all hands on deck. Yep. But that’s for a future defending the kingdom.

01:08:07
Speaker 2: Sure could. Okay, first question. This is from John Keys6621. He asked this before the game. He wanted to know our favorite thing about the Broncos game.

01:08:18
Speaker 1: This game? Favorite thing about the Broncos? Emmett Johnson.

01:08:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s the answer.

01:08:23
Speaker 1: That’s an easy one.

01:08:24
Speaker 2: That’s the answer.

01:08:25
Speaker 1: And you know what? My favorite thing about favorite thing? He had a special team’s assist. How many guys have 73-yard or catch 120 yards in passes and have a special team’s assist and a 44-yard kickoff return? Yeah, that one’s easy.

01:08:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, Emmitt’s awesome. This is like the Emmitt Johnson episode. He’s for sure the answer.

01:08:43
Speaker 1: To that one, John. Can you imagine if we win the game, though?

01:08:46
Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.

01:08:47
Speaker 2: He’d be the hero.

01:08:47
Speaker 1: I mean, Kyle Brandt would have had an Emmitt Johnson jersey on.

01:08:50
Speaker 2: Well, and I blame myself for this. I try not to get ahead of myself, but with 13 minutes left, I was confident we were winning the game, and I was thinking about the Emmett Johnson Chiefs Rewind post-game interview, like this is going to be so much fun, all that. You got to finish the game. That’s the lesson from this one.

01:09:07
Speaker 3: All right.

01:09:07
Speaker 2: This is from Robert Julie Van Way, 1860. He’s from Fort Benning, Georgia, but originally from Kansas. He says that your son was actually his wife’s teacher at Olathe Northwest back in the day.

01:09:19
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay.

01:09:21
Speaker 2: I’m sure it went well. He’s talking about it.

01:09:23
Speaker 1: He actually is a very good teacher, but I’m biased.

01:09:25
Speaker 2: I believe it.

01:09:26
Speaker 1: Also an excellent coach.

01:09:27
Speaker 2: Is that Brian?

01:09:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s Brian.

01:09:28
Speaker 2: Good for Brian.

01:09:29
Speaker 1: Excellent coach.

01:09:30
Speaker 2: Uh, he wants to know if you ever pinch yourself being the voice of the chiefs and if working for a sports team was always your goal.

01:09:36
Speaker 1: Um, yeah, well, I pinched myself a lot. Uh, maybe it’s just my, you know, my own problem. Let’s go back to Ralph psychiatric. Um, there are times really I get overwhelmed and I’ll just say this. I was going to save it for the book, but we’ll put it out there now. And I’ve mentioned this before, but my drives to the stadium for home games are spiritual. I have this track of music I always play, but it takes me back through my entire life to get me in the right frame of mind, to be humbled, to understand what a privilege it is to do that game that day. It’s the same on the bus. You know, we, The night before games, the radio crew has to kind of entertain suite holders and sponsors. And it’s kind of a chamber of commerce, you know, yuck it up. I always tell them, though, not tomorrow. I’ll be on the bus long before you get on there, and I’ll be on there with headphones. Beware of dog. Just because I have to get myself in a position to realize how privileged I am, how humbled I am. because I walked through my whole life with this music to get me to that spot. So yeah, I guess I pinch myself every week. That’s super cool.

01:10:51
Speaker 2: And when you were a kid, did you want to be a play-by-play broadcaster or what was your goal.

01:10:55
Speaker 3: As a kid?

01:10:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, I’ve gone through that too. I could take you to the farm right now and show you all the stadia that where they all, the Jets, the Jets. When I was a little kid, the Jets were a deal. I could take you to Shea Stadium because I had to have a kind of a muddy feel. Like it was always muddy at Shea Stadium, whatever. They had the worst surface ever. Go back and look at the Chiefs win there in the famous Willie Lanier 36 inches. They were just 36 inches and I would not concede defeat. And that, the goal line stand, it was great. I saw heads bowed and concessions to be made. But I could take you back to the farm and show you that. So yes, there was always a dream even back to like first or second grade.

01:11:37
Speaker 2: That’s awesome. Well, we’re glad you’re here.

01:11:39
Speaker 1: I was a crazy kid. Bad childhood.

01:11:43
Speaker 2: Last one. This is from 4th and 7 with the Chiefs and W. Dill. Never know with some of these usernames. I read the whole thing. They want to know who our favorite Chiefs player that we’ve ever talked to is or was.

01:11:56
Speaker 1: Oh, man. You want to answer that one?

01:11:59
Speaker 2: Well, so I can go a few different directions with this. I think for me now, because I grew up watching the early 2000s Chiefs. So the 2003 Chiefs team was one of the teams that got me into football. I think for me, while I love all our current players and our past players, it’s been so much fun to get to know those guys over the years. I think whenever I talk to Trent Green or Dante Hall, I’m still starstruck. It’s fun because I do this stuff with Trent during the preseason. We’ll go out to dinner and he’ll ask me questions about the team. I still can’t believe that Trent Green knows my name.

01:12:35
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?

01:12:37
Speaker 2: I think for me, it’s guys like Trent, guys like Dante who are awesome. And they always say like, be wary of meeting the people that you idolize as a kid. And honestly, you fall in this category too. Meeting you, working with you, meeting Dante, meeting Trent has been a dream come true. So I think for me, that’d be my answer. What about you?

01:13:00
Speaker 1: Couple here, one to work 25 years with Len Dawson, who was my boyhood hero. That was a dynamic that was interesting because you didn’t want him to like, Like a fan boy, like the first couple of years, we’ll just look at him and stare at him the whole game. And then we developed a terrific relationship. I miss him. But honestly, and this sounds like kind of a cheesy answer, but to talk to Patrick Mahomes for not the reasons you think, he is one of the smartest, most emotionally and mentally mature, high-level athletes I’ve ever been around. Yeah. I love talking to him. And- stuff that’s not about football. And I love the way he loves his wife and his family. I saw Tyler Texas and where they responded to him, the way Tech loves him, the way he loves… He’s just an amazing human being, way beyond all the stats and the wins and the Super Bowl ring. So anytime I get a chance to talk to him about football or otherwise, I just… 15’s right there.

01:14:04
Speaker 2: You hope when guys find a lot of success… And Patrick’s found all the success you can possibly have in football and in life. You hope they don’t change. And what’s so cool about that guy is he is the same dude that he was when he first got here.

01:14:17
Speaker 1: Yep.

01:14:18
Speaker 2: And that doesn’t always happen. So I’m with you. Every chance I chat with Patrick.

01:14:21
Speaker 1: And I found out he’s the same dude that was growing up in Tyler, Texas. Yeah. It’s really cool.

01:14:25
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:14:26
Speaker 2: Kansas City could not ask for a better ambassador than Patrick Mahomes. It’s unbelievable. One of those things where if he was like a movie character, they’d be like, I don’t know. This is pretty unrealistic. But he’s our guy and it’s real life. I’m with you on that.

01:14:38
Speaker 1: Road games, which we’ve had back-to-back road games, road losses, always means Matt’s movie review. What did Matt watch on the plane?

01:14:47
Speaker 2: I watched the movie Arrival. You ever seen that before?

01:14:50
Speaker 3: I have.

01:14:50
Speaker 1: Okay. How many hamburgers? Cheeseburgers.

01:14:53
Speaker 2: I give it three and a half cheeseburgers.

01:14:55
Speaker 1: That’s about right.

01:14:56
Speaker 2: I watched the bulk of it on the way there, the last 30 minutes on the way home, because it’s a pretty short flight to Denver. It is an undeniably beautiful movie. It is also- like super sad and a bummer and unhappy and depressing.

01:15:11
Speaker 1: Kind of the first 20 minutes of this podcast, to be honest with you. Well, you know. Here comes Ralph again.

01:15:15
Speaker 2: This is where possibly I find myself taking football a bit too seriously because I was thinking about parallels in the movie Arrival with the game in Denver. Because yeah, flying back, I’m like, man, this movie is really good, but it’s also like so sad and depressing. And I’m like, this is kind of how I feel about the Chiefs Broncos game right now. But you know, one of the themes of the movie is all about how joy is and heartbreak go together. You can’t have one without the other. And again, I’m taking this far too seriously. I’m looking way too into it. But with football, we love when the Chiefs win and it’s so much fun because we care. When the Chiefs win Super Bowls, when they win walk-off games, when they hoist AFC Conference Championship trophies and Lombardi trophies, you feel it and it’s just overwhelming joy, right? Well, you feel that because when the team loses, it feels the same way, just the opposite.

01:16:05
Speaker 1: You care.

01:16:06
Speaker 2: So when the team loses in a heartbreaker like that, you feel it. We felt it just like Chiefs fans felt it. So anyway, I was thinking about how you can’t have the great moments without the bad ones. Hopefully a lot of great moments to come this year. And we’ll reflect on the game in Denver and say, that was a low point. But man, if it wasn’t for that, maybe we wouldn’t be feeling how we’re feeling now. So I give Arrival three and a half cheeseburgers. It was a good movie, but it led to a larger existential conversation in my head about football and life.

01:16:34
Speaker 1: And this is going to get way too deep, but I think about it every day. It’s the fact that fans who, let’s just take the NFL in specific, and I love fantasy football, but fantasy football is kind of warping reality football and feeling the game as you should feel it. Same thing with prop bets and everything else, for sure. And I’ve told you this before, and I did a ton of college basketball, neutral for ESPN and Fox. I would go do a game, but there wasn’t any ownership in it. I wanted to present the game. Somebody won and somebody lost. But I kind of felt neutral leaving the arenas. And it’s not the same. No. And so to get on that plane, even with the heartbreak of the Bronco game, that’s part of the question about, hey, do you ever pinch yourself being the voice of the Chiefs? Yeah, but you’re part of it. And you feel it. And you feel it in your soul. And you feel the joy and the heartbreak both. And to be in three Super Bowl parades… But then also to feel the heartbreak of losing a game that you should have won. Yeah, it’s all part of it. It’s all part of it.

01:17:33
Speaker 2: And there’s something else there too. I totally agree with it where after a game like that, all the Bronco fans are letting us have it, right? But there’s an element where I’m still proud to be in the Chiefs gear.

01:17:43
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.

01:17:44
Speaker 2: And with you walking out of there, like I’m holding my head up high.

01:17:48
Speaker 1: You cut me from probably– All on HR.

01:17:51
Speaker 2: I don’t know about that.

01:17:52
Speaker 1: Those fans, they’re getting worse all the time. No, I’m with you. Anyway, thanks for keeping me restrained.

01:17:57
Speaker 2: But I agree. There’s an element where you go as a team, you win as a team, or you lose as a team, and you’re proud no matter what. And that’s an element that you don’t have if you don’t work for the team. And that’s why I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m with you.

01:18:09
Speaker 1: Yes, what I watched.

01:18:11
Speaker 2: What’d you watch?

01:18:12
Speaker 1: Dutton Ranch.

01:18:12
Speaker 2: Let’s go. What happened in Dutton Ranch on the episode?

01:18:15
Speaker 1: We’re getting this really good. It’s some really good writing, twists and turns. This leads into another point that I think all the good writers now are writing these long series like a Ted Lasso or, um, you know, or Dutton Ratch or Yellowstone. I feel like that’s where all the good writing is. Yeah. Not movies. Not movies. Like they’re, are they getting paid more or is that where we’re sending all the creativity? And maybe, but yeah, Dutton Ratch is actually taking some really interesting turns that we’ll wait for the Atlanta trip. Uh, and yes, I have Paramount Plus and I can watch Landman when I want to, Just don’t you worry about it when I want to binge in it. I just can’t binge during the season. All right. Finally, let’s go around the world. We close it out. Yep. Okay.

01:18:55
Speaker 2: I’ve got one for you. Shout out to Glenn. So Glenn works for NBC and CBS in Denver. He’s lived there a long time, but he’s from Independence originally.

01:19:05
Speaker 1: He’s a big shoes fan. Missouri or Kansas? Kansas.

01:19:06
Speaker 2: I believe Missouri.

01:19:07
Speaker 1: Okay.

01:19:08
Speaker 2: He didn’t specify, so I think that would imply Missouri.

01:19:10
Speaker 1: Truman Patriot, Crispin Bear.

01:19:11
Speaker 2: See, I don’t know.

01:19:12
Speaker 1: Let us know. I’m not Fort Osage. Yeah, Fort Osage, yeah.

01:19:15
Speaker 2: He’s a big Kansas City sports guy, though. Loves the Chiefs, loves the Royals. He goes to a Royals fantasy camp every year, down in Surprise, which is super cool.

01:19:22
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:19:23
Speaker 2: But anyway, I always enjoy it when someone comes up in an opposing stadium, especially like in Denver, and they’re like, hey, just want to let you know, like I work for the Broncos as like a third party, but I’m a Chiefs fan.

01:19:34
Speaker 1: Go Chiefs.

01:19:35
Speaker 2: I always love that.

01:19:36
Speaker 1: You don’t blow their cover ever though. I like that.

01:19:38
Speaker 2: I didn’t seem that Glenn really cares. Glenn kind of wanted.

01:19:40
Speaker 1: Everyone to know. That’s a pseudo name. Yeah.

01:19:42
Speaker 2: Maybe it’s not his real name.

01:19:43
Speaker 1: He’s actually Ralph. Yeah. Yeah. The psychiatrist.

01:19:47
Speaker 2: But Glenn was super cool. And after the game, you know, we’re just immediately after the game, we’re in a bad place mentally. We’re walking down and I see him and he handled it perfectly where he’s like, he’s like, hey, it’s going to be all right. We got this the rest of the year. You know, I appreciate Glenn. Shout out to you, Glenn. Thanks for saying hi. It was great to get to know you.

01:20:05
Speaker 1: Awesome. I’d won John. We had a huge crowd at the Hy-Vee at Lee’s Summit last night for the Chiefs Kingdom show. And we had Xavier Worthy. Biggest crowd of the year other than the Mahomes one that we had that wasn’t open to the public. But this place was raucous. But at the end of the end of the end, John comes up from Holden, Missouri, home of the Eagles, I think. Okay. He started with the very first episode of Defending the Kingdom in his perfect attendance. Wow.

01:20:32
Speaker 3: Wow.

01:20:33
Speaker 1: We need, we got to get shirts.

01:20:35
Speaker 2: We need shirts. The show is upgraded considerably over the years.

01:20:38
Speaker 1: Kingdom Defender shirts. And if you’re perfect attendance like John, you get a gold shirt. Okay. And then it sets them apart from the others.

01:20:45
Speaker 2: I still want to get the map of the world too. I mean, put the defenders all over the world. Feels like a missed opportunity. This could be a good off-season project. What’s our social team doing?

01:20:54
Speaker 1: Are we on this?

01:20:54
Speaker 2: Well, they’re right behind the camera.

01:20:56
Speaker 1: We can only keep asking.

01:20:58
Speaker 2: So, okay.

01:20:59
Speaker 1: It’s a long run. We’re not even halfway through the marathon. We’re not even at the 1600 mark of the 3200 meter race. So the race continues. Try to go get a win and beat the Jets at Arrowhead and keep Ralph just where he belongs for a while.