The SUPER BOWL SHOW

SPEAKER_02:
This is the Sports Porch Black and Gold with your hosts, the Technical Director, the Grand Schwabini, and Hockey Jesus. Come on, Pittsburgh. Let's show a little Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates love. The Sports Porch Black and Gold starts now.

TD: All right. There you go. This is the sports porch, the black and gold podcast all over the world on Facebook, on YouTube, on X, on the Instagram. And now as an experiment for you, uh, tick-tock followers on tick-tock right up there. What up, TikTok? We will eventually get you on the main broadcast, but this is our first time doing it. So if you're in the house, say hello, drop a comment, follow us. You can also subscribe to the Sports Porch on YouTube at the Sports Porch Podcast. And of course, we are a podcast. We drop the podcast right after the game, right after the game on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify.

SPEAKER_01: or anywhere you get your freaking podcast.

TD: That's exactly right. YouTube is in the house. LinkedIn is in the house. We do also have a live radio stream that I'm going to put up here. I'm just dropping the stream in the comments. That is radiopgh.com. That is our live internet radio station. you can listen to it anytime you want. So guys, uh, I don't know if I should play the, uh, the Eagles fight song, but I do want to, I do however, want to start the show song. Isn't that great? It's not good. It's not, but I do want to start the show with every, with something that every Pittsburgh fan wants to see. Every Steelers fan wants to see this. because it must be seen. And if you're on TikTok, we'll describe it. Here we go. The best play of Super Bowl 59, hands down.

SPEAKER_08: For the second time, the Vince Lombardi trophy is headed to Philadelphia.

Hockey Jesus: Can he pick it? You know he's keeping that ball. Can he pick it? It's the only Super Bowl he'll ever get.

TD: Can he pick it? Kneels down for the final.

Hockey Jesus: The final second. I knelt with this ball.

TD: Yeah, that's right.

Hockey Jesus: On the field. Minus one yard.

Grand Schwalbini: Hey, you know, you gotta give it up to the Eagles. You know, when you see a winner, get them on your team.

TD: Exactly. You know? Exactly. They knew a winner when they saw one. I mean, come on now. I mean, does it get any worse than that for Steelers fans right now? Seriously, it doesn't mean anything. Are you serious? You're telling me you're telling me. Yes, I am. You're telling me that Steelers nation right now is not upset in any way, shape or form about the fact that Kenny Pickett, who sucked here, OK, and didn't deserve to be a starting quarterback here, well, went to the Eagles. He was drafted in the first round and got to kneel down for the final seconds of a Super Bowl victory. He's going to get a ring. You know, he's gonna get a paycheck. Dude, it doesn't matter. You are so crazy. Hold on, he will forever.

SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter.

TD: Every time he does… How many times have you seen him somewhere? This week at the mall. Super Bowl champion, Joe Smith, forever for the rest of his life, anywhere he goes for a paid appearance of which he will get some, they will always be featuring Super Bowl champion, Kenny Pickett. I mean, think about that. Think about the irony.

Hockey Jesus: Dude, everybody knows his position on this team. Nobody thinks of him as a Super Bowl champion.

TD: I know that. That's the point of bringing it up.

Hockey Jesus: And nobody's even upset about it in Pittsburgh because they know what he is. I don't know about that.

Grand Schwalbini: As a matter of fact, I would almost say Pittsburgh Sports Radio trying to make it a story is pathetic.

Hockey Jesus: It is absolutely pathetic. Everybody on the team, including everybody who's ever been in the office, will get a ring. That includes Kenny Pickett.

TD: And they can all get paid appearances and say, you know, former Super Bowl champion Joe Smith.

Hockey Jesus: He had zero percent to do with anything that the Eagles did, which, by the way, they did a lot of great things that the Steelers need to take notice of.

TD: Uh, I would agree with you. Uh, and we're going to talk about that in just a second here.

Hockey Jesus: Um, by the way, I'm wearing, uh, in homage to the Philadelphia Eagles, Harold Carmichael, the Kelly green.

TD: Yep. Uh, one of the great numbers, show us number 17, stand up a little bit. There you go. I mean, we have to and the Grand Schwabini for our Philly show at 6 p.m. Eastern time. He's got the general seating for for the link behind him. But yes, we've got we've got to give him we've got to give him some props. We've got to congratulate him. His Eagles won the Super Bowl. And my God, did they do it in a pretty handy fashion?

Grand Schwalbini: It was very exciting. I did not think that it was going to be a total domination that it was. But boy was it fun. It was fun to just watch Patrick Mahomes be lost. and have no game and have no answers. And Andy Reid have no answers. Yeah, it was great.

Hockey Jesus: They they he looked like the old man and the young kid like it like you've never seen them before. So it'll be interesting to see how they respond to it in the in the in the postseason. But yeah, they made him look like absolute fools in the whole game. Like right. Philadelphia did not take their foot off the pedal at all. whether it was on defense or offense that passed the Devonta Smith deep showed that they just wanted to keep going. The rush that the Eagles had, even though it was only four people look like it was like eight people coming at him.

Grand Schwalbini: It did.

Hockey Jesus: I mean, every, every pass play, because for whatever reason, they decided they were going to put the ball in the home's hands and they had no, no way to get it out quickly.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Right.

Hockey Jesus: And that's what was surprising to me. I thought they would find a way to get it out quickly, but they, they were just so like, literally he had no time to throw the ball. I think I saw a statistic where he had 20 passes in like 10 were rushed and five were, you know, hit or something like that. And so basically he got to throw five balls of his first 20 that were clear and free of, of anything. That's a recipe for our loss big time.

TD: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the, you know, what I put down in the ticker here, the Superbowl 59, the Eagles hunt and kill the Chiefs champions. Uh, they hunted, they killed their champions. Uh, I do want to go and ask this question. It's kind of a, a parlay to, uh, and we're going to talk about our parlay by the way. It's a parlay to, uh, to, uh, Yinzer trivia. Uh, which one of us correctly predicted the Eagles to win the Superbowl? That would be the technical director. Thank you very much. You're welcome, Mark. You're welcome. And I'm going to make another prediction at the end of this show that I'm almost 100% sure is going to come true.

Grand Schwalbini: And we have to wait for the end.

TD: We have to wait for the end. Oh, what a tease. Yeah, absolutely.

Hockey Jesus: And you know, Chris's, you know, record when it comes to picking games.

TD: Yes.

Hockey Jesus: I'm sure everybody's going to wait around for that.

TD: Hey, listen, I picked the only game that matters. Did I not? No, they all matter. Yeah. No, this one is the one that really, really, really, truly mattered. So how did you guys think about the Eagles performance in the Super Bowl? Leave us a comment. If you're on TikTok, drop us a comment. If you're on YouTube X, Instagram or Facebook. Mike Lawrence is asking, is Schwabini making a trip to Philly to run up the steps of the art museum? He should and send video or pictures. Congrats to the Eagles. It's not a bad idea.

Grand Schwalbini: It's a fine idea.

TD: Do you think you could actually make it up the steps of the art museum if you ran?

Grand Schwalbini: I do. But I also have a job. So I won't be going in just to run up the steps, which I probably did when I was eight. Yeah. But it's a nice thought.

TD: Nice, you know, sentiment, Mike. Thank you. Thanks, Marvin, for being here. He says good evening, guys. Hey, Marvin, what's up? I don't think there's any way to to really break down this game because it was so one-sided. I mean, you know, H.J. was at my house. By the way, this is H.J. to my left, and he's going to be doing a little Penguins stuff a little bit later on. Hockey Jesus in the house and the Grand Swabini across from me, of course. I, it's hard to break this game down other than Vic Fangio not dialing up a blitz for almost the entire game. And the fact that, you know, I actually think that Andy Reid had no answer for that because he wasn't expecting it. What do you guys think? Because I would give the defense the MVP over Jalen Hurts. And he played a fantastic game. But that whole defense should be named co-MVP.

Hockey Jesus: I think both on the offensive and defensive side for Philadelphia, they had the perfect response. And it's because they have such a great offensive and defensive line. Right. That offensive line. I mean, they could have they could have tried the Blitz Kansas City. It wouldn't matter. Philadelphia was picking everything up. And if they knew the Blitz was coming, guess what? They just would have run the ball. And I know that Barkley wasn't effective in his running, but they were smart enough to keep at it and keep him in the game with swing passes. And on top of that, they had two other big weapons that they use.

TD: Did I miss something? I was talking about the Eagles defense. Did I say Kansas city's defense? Did, did I, did I miss something?

Hockey Jesus: I don't know why you're talking about that. I'm talking about how the Eagles won the Superbowl. Okay. I don't give a shit. I don't care. I don't care about the Kansas city's defense. They didn't play. They weren't there. They had no scheme that could have stopped that Eagles offense. true. And, and, and despite having a good season, it was clearly all fake because everybody knows they won most of their games by one score. And it was because they weren't playing against good teams, right? When they played against the best team of the league, they got their asses handed to them. That's very true. And, and that's the bottom line. And, and the thing that I think that Steeler Steeler nation needs to think about is the NFL tends to be a copycat league. I don't know how you can copy this offensive line size and speed, and I don't understand, unless you draft three consecutive drafts like the Eagles did, you can get a team like this that quickly. You would have to have a perfect draft the next three years to get to there. And let's face it, the Steelers don't have that kind of timing. So what the, what the, but what, what it proves is if you have a great running game and you have a, a top-notch defense, you can basically win a championship. And because that's what the Eagles did, but you also have to be able to pass the ball because they were able to pass the ball well enough with Devonta Smith first, and A. J. Brown, you know, breaking up, uh, the secondary essentially. I know he only had like three catches, but he was the guy who was, who was double team most of the night and took their number one defensive back so that everybody else could do what they did. Just a great offensive scheme and defensive scheme by the Eagles and made look, make Kansas city look like honestly, like, uh, like a minor league team.

TD: The one thing Kansas City did do right is they were able to take Saquon Barkley as far as numbers out of the game. And we talked about this last week in our Super Bowl preview show. We said, They're going to focus, they're going to pull a Bill Belichick. They're going to say, let's take the biggest threat. And they were successful at that. The problem is the Eagles have a guy named Jalen Hurts who doesn't crack under pressure. And they have A.J. Brown and Devontae Smith who are pretty damn good receivers. And I think the Eagles were ready for that. I think they thought the same thing. Yeah. They said Barkley is going to be their focus and we're not going to run away from Barkley. If he's, he only averaged like 2.5 yards a carry or something like that, but they rushed him 25 times. And we said on the earlier show, he had six receptions for 40 yards. So. You know, he was actually the perfect decoy for that offense at the time.

Hockey Jesus: I don't think he was even a decoy. I think because they, they ran, they always had to have six guys in the box and that just exposed them to, to the past. You know, you're going to have the Vaughn to Smith. And even on that pass to Johan Datsun down to the goal line. I mean, they weren't afraid to make the plays. And kudos to Hertz. He deserves the MVP because he was able to make every one of those throws. Minus maybe that one interception.

TD: But that was so inconsequential. It was like a punt. Marvin says the first pass went to a new guy. Yep. The Chiefs got exposed and their coaching staff are very good group. They did a great job. I don't know if I would say the Chiefs got exposed. I would say that the chiefs are running into an issue in that the talent around Pat Mahomes is not what it has been the last four, even five years. You've got Kelsey, who is clearly now not what he was.

Hockey Jesus: Right. Yeah. He's on his way down.

TD: He's on his way down.

Hockey Jesus: And he was his number one target.

TD: Yeah.

Grand Schwalbini: And he was and he was bad.

TD: Yeah, he dropped a couple balls. Yeah.

Grand Schwalbini: I mean, he was bad. Yeah. And, but his hair looked good. Yes. Well, I, I thought it was a mistake. Uh, cut the hair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We talked about that before. It resulted in a loss. Yeah.

Hockey Jesus: Hey, when Taylor Swift says, get your haircut and look nice, you get your haircut.

TD: Look, as soon as you start letting your woman tell you what to do, you can just kiss the rest of

Hockey Jesus: Hey, when your woman's making a billion dollars, I think he made the right choice.

TD: Yeah. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm just saying, you know, right. It does lead to other things. So, um, right. And they don't really have a running, a running back to speak of, um, you know, P Ryan is, is, is a cast off.

Grand Schwalbini: I mean, here's the thing. Well, they don't have a great running back, but there's still no excuse for three runs in the first half. I mean, it was old Andy Reid, Eagle Andy Reid, who we always used to say, he never runs the ball. All he does is pass, pass, pass. And that's what they did. And in this particular game, he should have figured out in the first quarter that you're going to have to balance it out because Mahomes was running for his life.

Hockey Jesus: Yeah. Every play that he went back. I mean, and the other thing that the Eagles defense did a great job of, because I think my homes is the master of this is keeping him in the pocket. He was not able to get outside. You could see when he tried to go outside, he was like, did like a spin around. And then the other guy was right there or when he ran into somebody or when he would try and cut up into, you know, where there would normally be a gap. There was no gap. They were very disciplined in their rush. And that's, That's why it took four guys to stop Mahomes. It wasn't just one. All of their defensive guys played and played well.

TD: Yeah, Vic Fangio came up with a game plan of his life. Probably the game plan of the century as far as I'm concerned.

Hockey Jesus: He had the right personnel to execute because they drafted well and they went out and got talent with AJ Brown to make them better. And that was it. That's all they needed. All the pieces were there.

Grand Schwalbini: Yeah, I will say, you know, Steve, when you were talking before about how it's hard to replicate that. You are right. I mean, I saw some graphic where it like the last three drafts, their first round, second round and third round picks. They're all good contributors on the team.

Hockey Jesus: Yeah, that Williams was like drafted like three years ago and he was like a third round pick.

Grand Schwalbini: Williams was a third round pick. Sweat was a third round pick. I mean, come on. Jalex Hunt was a third round pick from this year. Yep. Right. You know, I mean, your first two picks of this year were, were starters Mitchell and Cooper Dejean. And then the year, the year before it was, they had two first round picks and they took a Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith.

Hockey Jesus: I think that's another, I think that's another thing that Steelers Nation needs to think about. When you draft somebody, you play them. Their first round picks for a reason. You got them not to play behind somebody, but to make an impact in year one, because the salary cap makes it necessary to do that in the first three years, because you're not, if you hit the home run, like I think the Eagles are gonna have problems now, because some of these guys are not gonna be able to resign. But so what they still, they still got some of these guys for two more years. And, um, and if they, if they drafted good character guys, they're not going to hold out and wait for a new contract. And if they're good enough, you know what, how we will give them a new contract anyways. Cause he knows which guys to sign and which guys not this.

TD: Yeah. Yeah. And Howie Roseman got my third game ball in our previous show. Yeah.

Hockey Jesus: Just well, just well done by the Eagles.

TD: Yeah. I mean, it, it, the last year, the beginning of the year, when I mentioned that Saquon Barkley as a signing would take them to the Superbowl, I thought that was it. I had no idea that they would be drafting these two cornerbacks. It seemed to be both shut down corners and then signing a guy like Zach Bond. I didn't see the impact from that at all. I, thought that their defense, because of the fact that it had been ranked the 30th defense, I actually thought they had enough talent that there was no way they were going to be that bad again. So for them to be, to move up even 10 or 12 spots, even if they're in the bottom half of the league, but in that top area, I think that could have put them over the top, having Saquon Barkley. So the thought that they would come all the way to being the No. 1 defense, that just proves how great a defensive coordinator Fangio was. And as far as the lack of blitz, Uh, I mean he were look if if there's any proof that these guys don't watch tape and make decisions It's gone I mean, how do you not watch the tape of patrick mahomes playing watching every single team? He plays try to put pressure on him by blitzing him and watching them all fail And and that leads to well, you know what? We're just not going to blitz him We're just going to put as much pressure as we can on the gaps and on the and on the line. And then when he starts to panic, he's going to run into somebody instead of running away from. So it seems so simple. Right.

Grand Schwalbini: Well, but here's the thing, though. I mean, I think. Part of it, obviously, is having good personnel, but the other part of it is having the good coaching. Because Vic Fangio basically got those guys to buy in, to be selfless, and to stay in their gaps. stay in their lanes, right? And that, yeah, so think about this, I mean, this seems so long ago, but remember, this offseason, they didn't bring back Hassan Redick. And at least from what I heard from the Eagles insiders, is that Vic Fangio didn't want him because all he cared about was getting sacks and he didn't keep to his assignments. Yeah, there you go.

Hockey Jesus: Wonder who that reminds you of.

TD: Yeah. Well, and also when he went to the Jets, I mean, he had problems.

Hockey Jesus: Yeah. Well, he went to the Jets. That's his first problem.

TD: Yeah. But then he went to the Jets for the money and also they didn't really play him and he immediately wanted to get out of there. And that's a sign that he's selfish. So. Right. Yeah. You're absolutely right. I mean. Come on. You would have went for the money. I'd go for the money now, for sure. And actually, when I was younger, I would have gone for the money. Yeah, more so when you were younger, I would say. Yeah, put me on a football field and try to get me to Saxon. I have a question for Mark.

Hockey Jesus: Yeah. I've been thinking about this. Remember last year when the Eagles were going through that terrible spell where it was like they had such a great start and then they just went down and were tanking? Yeah. And everybody in Philadelphia wanted to get rid of Sirianni. Right. What happened with the Eagles fan base that they, instead of doing the Philadelphia thing and, and pitchforking the guy out of town, what happened to the Philadelphia fan base to make them want to keep Sirianni and, and, and rebuild with him?

TD: They won the Superbowl. No, no, no.

Hockey Jesus: Last year.

Grand Schwalbini: Well, well, well, to be honest, um, It wasn't a given that he was going to be brought back. They waited like 10 days until after the Super Bowl to say he was coming back. They were thinking about it. They were thinking about Belichick and they were also thinking about it. like four games into the season when they were two and two.

Hockey Jesus: Yeah, right. They started two and two.

Grand Schwalbini: Yeah. And I'll be honest. I gotta be honest. I was one of those idiots. I know you were. I was one of those idiots.

Hockey Jesus: What changed? What changed in the mentality of a Philadelphia fan? Because I think Philadelphia fans are so impatient. And I recognize Sirianni is a great choice. And because he took him to the Super Bowl early. And last year I just was like, ah, he's learning. And that's what I was thinking. But everybody in Philadelphia was like, had the pitchforks out and wanted to get rid of him. What changed in the thinking?

Grand Schwalbini: Well, you know what I think it is. Well, first of all, I think, number one, it's winning. After the two and two start, they won 16 of 17, including the Super Bowl. Right. But, you know, the other part of it is sometimes it's just like my big thing was, what does he do? You know, like, what does he do? Like, you know, he doesn't call the plays on offense. He doesn't call the plays on defense. What does he do? Yeah.

Hockey Jesus: He just pulls it all together. Right. Right.

Grand Schwalbini: Right. And then when you're, when that's what you are and then you're going for it on every fourth down and you're blowing a game, then it's like, well, this is what he's supposed to be good at managing the game.

SPEAKER_07: Yeah.

Grand Schwalbini: Right. But you know, I think what I've kind of learned through this experience is There's a lot more that goes on behind the scenes that you just don't even know about.

SPEAKER_07: Yeah.

Grand Schwalbini: So like, for example, you know, the Eagles have one of the best offensive line coaches in the league, Jeff Stoutland, who clearly brought him up. Yes. Yes.

TD: Hold on.

Grand Schwalbini: He's Kelly and he's he's awesome. And so one of the big success stories this year was moving Mekhi Becton from tackle to guard. And he really, you know, he didn't make the Pro Bowl, but he had a Pro Bowl type season, right? And you know what? It wasn't until Super Bowl week where I heard an interview with Stoutland And they asked him about moving back into guard. And he said, yeah, he's like, I got to give all the credit to Nick on that. That was Nick's idea. And I just said, all right, we can try it. Yeah.

Hockey Jesus: So it came from the player. They were listening to the play.

SPEAKER_04: No, no, no.

Hockey Jesus: It came from the head coach.

Grand Schwalbini: Okay. So that's what he does. So that's what he does. You know, he does things like that. Right. And, and I think the other thing he does too is, you know, after they had a two and two start apparently, um, like Lane Johnson and Jordan Malata and, um, Landon Dickerson went in and talked to him, and he's receptive to that, and they said, hey look, we got Saquon Barkley, why aren't we running the ball 60% of the time?

Hockey Jesus: We can open up lanes, we can get him a lane, he'll go to the house.

Grand Schwalbini: And he went with that, but not only did he go with that, but then he also had to manage for the whole season, A.J. Brown may be being unhappy. You know, Devante Smith may be being unhappy, right? And it's just kind of getting everybody to buy into the mission of this is our best chance to win. And he does a really good job of that.

TD: Yeah. Yeah. It's obvious what, you know, what he does is he says to the coordinators, this is your offense. This is your defense. I'm the glue. If players have issues with each other, they have issues on the field, they have issues off the field, they bring those issues to me, then I come to you and we settle it that way. And that's what he does. And he did it really well. And I've been a Sirianni defender for the last couple of years, especially after that collapse. I thought it would have been a mistake. for the Eagles to, to let him go. And yes, Philadelphia fans are very impatient.

Grand Schwalbini: Um, and they let you know it, but, but let's also, let's also, uh, take this and, and turn it towards the Steelers a little bit.

SPEAKER_00: That was my next question.

Grand Schwalbini: That's going to hurt. That was my next question. We're going to do it. That's going to hurt. But no, but you know, but here, here's, um, here's a, like a, I think a key difference between the way Eagles have been doing things. versus the Steelers, which is, the difference is, is Nick Sirianni doesn't have all the power. You know, he's an employee of the team. And, you know, Howie Roseman picks the team, and it's his job to coach it, and essentially be like a director for the offensive and the defensive coordinator. Right? The other thing that it means is in Philadelphia, if you win 11, well, that looks good. Hey, Lawrence. Hey, Lawrence.

TD: Hey, good to see you. And the Pittsburgh property diva shows up with our Trader Joe's segment. We'll get to you after this.

Grand Schwalbini: And the thing is, in Philadelphia, if you win 11 games and you get blown out in your first playoff game, You're on the hot seat.

Hockey Jesus: That's it. Yeah.

Grand Schwalbini: You're on the hot seat. And like, no, look, there's different ways to do things. And I'm not opposed to keeping a coach for a long time. They'll probably end up keeping Sirianni for a long time. Yeah, maybe a little bit longer. They might give him two more years. That's a long, long time. But if you think about it, I mean, you know, in the last eight years, they've won a super bowl with two different coaches and two different quarterbacks. And it was okay to fire Doug Peterson who won them their first super bowl. Right. when he, you know, didn't do well the three years afterwards. Exactly. That it was time to move on and try somebody new. Right. And look, I mean, I'll be, look, I'll be 100% honest, like, if this year, turned out to be a continuation of the previous year's fallout, he wouldn't be back.

Hockey Jesus: Yeah, if they were one and done in the playoffs, and maybe went to 14-3 still, they probably would have got rid of him.

Grand Schwalbini: Maybe not 14-3. I'm not convinced of that. Okay, 10-7.

Hockey Jesus: Let's use a Steelers euphemism. Yeah, if they were 10-7 and they got blown out 40-20, he'd be gone.

Grand Schwalbini: Yeah. And I don't think that's a bad thing.

Hockey Jesus: I don't know. I don't think it's a bad thing is proven. It's not. I think. I think. And so to bring it back to the Steelers, I think that's the problem with the Steelers. They have this history of the head coach being the head coach for life. And now that seemingly isn't working. Right. Or they hired somebody so young he wants to keep coaching for a very long time. The Steelers are stuck. Like if the owner wants to do it, there's nothing that can be done about that. So if if the owner doesn't change or if the owner doesn't have a change of philosophy with that, I mean, there's really not a lot of hope in Steeler Nation when it comes to that, you know, if you want to imitate the best.

TD: Yeah. And here's a shining example of how well the Eagles organization right now is running. We mentioned, who's the offensive line coach? Jeff Stoutland. Stoutland. He was a Chip Kelly hire. And Chip Kelly, when he left the Eagles, that was not a good experience. He was not liked. They did not have a situation where he was basically kicked out of town by management. But they had the foresight to say, yeah, we don't like this guy. But he did make a pretty good hire here, and they kept him through Doug Peterson winning a Super Bowl through Nick Sirianni. That's the sign of a great organization, right? Because so even though Chip Kelly ended up, you know, this first year was kind of like a shock, right? Then it was a disaster, right? They found the good. in that situation. Whereas you've got the Steelers from the top down that have this mentality of continuity and consistency is the name of the game, right? But it's not that they're looking at the wrong continuity and the wrong consistency. It's not head coach for life and all of that bullshit. It's where is the good, you know? So if they were to say to Tomlin, it's time, What from Tomlin, I'm not, I don't want the answer to this question cause I already know what it is, but a good organization would say, okay, it's time to move on from Tomlin, but let's say that their, their receivers coach, they, their receivers were doing really well. And the receivers coach, we're going to keep this guy. We're going to, we're going to let this guy have the opportunity to stay because there's a good part of this where the Steelers are right now is seriously. And we're going to, We're going to probably do a show next week on this, the state of Pittsburgh sports, but where the Steelers are right now on this is nowhere. No, I mean, they're absolutely nowhere.

Hockey Jesus: Well, and I mean, this is the way Tom one's been coaching from the very beginning. He's kept his offensive and defensive coordinators, even though maybe they have been subpar, um, because they're familiar. Maybe, you know, it's why he drafted Kenny picket. Why? Because he was a familiar face. he thought he was a leader and you know maybe he's just not good at judging this anymore and that's what's that's what us steeler nation's fans have to just be ready to accept wait maybe he just doesn't have it anymore to be able to assess talent whether it's on the field or whether it's coaching what's on the field. And maybe the Roonies need to open up their pocketbook a little bit more to hire some assistant coaches and some trainers who can keep their guys on the field instead of being injured and pushing sleds and hurting their calves.

TD: What do you mean Kenny Pickett isn't?

SPEAKER_08: for the second time.

TD: I mean, seriously, is that not a leader? Is that not leading his team to the Super Bowl champ?

Hockey Jesus: Three, three handoffs, one incomplete pass, one kneel down Super Bowl champion.

TD: I couldn't help it. I couldn't help it. So I know that you guys, I know that you guys can smell what's going on here.

Hockey Jesus: So I think it's all good.

TD: I think it's right after I explained to everybody that if you're watching us live right now, you're watching on Facebook, all over the world, on YouTube, on X, on Instagram, and now on TikTok. Wave hi to TikTok, everybody. What up, TikTok? And you can catch the podcast anywhere you get your podcasts all over the world. We drop a podcast right after the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify.

SPEAKER_01: or anywhere you get your frigging podcast.

TD: And, uh, you can also catch us on YouTube at the sports sports podcast. If you're not subscribed on Tik TOK, go to YouTube at the sports sports podcast. And right now, boys, it's time for one. I know it's your favorite time of the show. We call this Trader Joe's snack time.

SPEAKER_07: Taste the biscuit, taste the goodness of the biscuit. Taste the honey sauce, taste the goodness of the biscuit with the honey sauce.

SPEAKER_00: Don't get that honey sauce on me, I don't like the way it tastes with my chicken wings.

TD: Well, nobody on TikTok can see the graphics, but for you guys who don't know, I work at Trader Joe's in Pittsburgh down in East Liberty. It's a great store, a great company, great people to work with and work for. This is our Trader Joe's Snack Time. It is not a sponsored segment. That's important for the algorithm. They did not pay us to do this, but I did get permission. And what I do is every week I bring home a Trader Joe's product. My lovely wife, the Pittsburgh property diva, Lauren Klein, there she is, pittsburghpropertydiva.com. She heats it up for us usually. And then we sample it and we give our honest opinion. So this week, luckily I had something in the freezer. It is Trader Joe's barbecue chicken pizza. Oh, that sounds good. Is this what didn't get eaten last night at the festivities? It did not get eaten at the festivities last night. Yeah. Interesting. Take a piece. Do we have plates? No, unfortunately, this is the only plate. That's a big piece. I got a big piece. Would you require a plate, Schwab? Sorry, TikTok. That's what I got right there. Yep. For you fans at home. There it is. Look at that. Picture of the box right there. Barbecue recipe chicken pizza. Here's a napkin you'll never use.

Hockey Jesus: Actually, I might use it. This is a little sloppy tonight.

TD: Yep. What do you guys think?

Hockey Jesus: You know what I noticed? There's a lot of quietness in the chat tonight. I think Steelers fans are kind of like not sure how to take this Super Bowl win. I think that everybody's kind of like, maybe they're already in the post-season mode, but I think this Eagles win really shows that the Steelers are really in a bad spot right now. And I think that makes a lot of Steelers fans sad.

TD: Myself included. I also think, even though we make fun of the idea, I also think that there is something ironic about Kenny Pickett taking the last snap?

Hockey Jesus: No, dude, they're not quite because of Kenny Pickett. Would you just stop that? I mean, come on, just end that. All right. Um, it's so ridiculous. I think, I know you're doing it just to gaslight us, but I think I'm doing it to gaslight you.

TD: I don't care about Mark. He's Superbowl champion.

Grand Schwalbini: I think the, Well, thank you. I did contribute to the win.

Hockey Jesus: All your nervousness all year had to contribute to something. It won.

TD: I feel like you're still nervous and they've won. It's okay. Yeah, I'm afraid I'm going to wake up and it was just a dream.

Grand Schwalbini: But no, I mean, I think the thing with the The Steelers, it's disappointing. And just so everybody knows, I mean, I root for the Steelers as my second team because they're in the AFC and my wife's a big Steelers fan. I have friends who are Steelers fans. And look, I mean, the chance that they're gonna play the Eagles in the Super Bowl, even if they're both good, is still pretty remote.

Hockey Jesus: It's never happened in 59 years.

Grand Schwalbini: Right, so, you know, I can certainly root for the Steelers. And one of the things that I find frustrating, because it would be a lot more fun if they were better You know, you know and I think what this game did unfortunately when I kind of Think about it in the Steelers framework Is it just kind of lets you know, like just how far away they are Yeah, yeah, you know, they're they're pretty far away. It's not like We don't think of them and I don't think of them anyway and say Hey, if they're one player away

Hockey Jesus: No, I agree with you. I mean, if you just look, and we've already went through this, so there's no reason to talk about it again, except it really highlights the point. Drafting is very important. When you miss on a draft, when you get zero good talent in your first three picks, you just can basically just, you know, you're not going to be able to be competitive in this league because the Steelers don't really go out and get guys. And we're not hopefully going to talk about Aaron Rogers. But, um, that the last year when they went out and got, um, uh, Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, that was an anomaly. That's not something they do. Um, and you know, the fact that they were kind of going after Brandon, a yuke, uh, is, is, is a new philosophy for the Steelers. And I don't think it's a good one. I think building a team through the draft is the way to go. They just gotta get better people at drafting. And I think they have some of those people there. I think Wydell definitely can spot talent, but I'm not so sure Khan can. I think Khan's just a numbers guy. I don't know if he can really identify the talent. Yeah, well, I think the- And I think that's a big problem.

TD: The biggest takeaway I have from this whole drafting situation is when they listed the, uh, draft picks on the defensive side of the ball for the last four years for the Philadelphia Eagles. And every single one of those guys, every single one of those guys was drafted homegrown and made a huge contribution, not a small one, a huge one. And I can't name a single, uh, Pittsburgh Steelers draft pick. Schwaber must be loving the pizza because we can hear him chewing.

Hockey Jesus: Dude, it's really good.

TD: Okay, let's give it a grade. This is excellent. Barbecue chicken pizza, Trader Joe's snack time. Thumbs up? Well, this is a tough one here.

Grand Schwalbini: You must have a high standard for it. I'm going to give a neutral. Okay. And I'll tell you why. I'm going to give a neutral because I think it was really good. but I just don't believe in chicken on pizza. But I have to admit it was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. So barbecue sauce really kicked it.

Hockey Jesus: Yeah. I would, I would add some more bar. This barbecue sauce is great. I would add more of it.

Grand Schwalbini: Yeah. Because it's that good. Yeah. But I can't allow it is what I'm saying. Okay. Just from a, like, you know, like you, like, I don't like pineapple on pizza. Right. I can't endorse chicken on pizza.

Hockey Jesus: Well, I can, and I give it two thumbs up. Yeah, I do too.

TD: It's, it's, it's the best barbecue chicken pizza I've ever had. Frozen or not. It is damn good. I have to admit. Let's get the slice of New York guy in here and see what Actually, we should have him on and have him taste it. And just give us from a perspective of, yes, it's frozen, but…

Hockey Jesus: Or we could get his pie and we could do them side by side. Yeah, that would really piss him off.

TD: Because he knows his pizza is really good. Have you have you watched any of his videos? That would be like that would be that would be sacrilege to even put a frozen pizza next to his pizza and say, let's compare it.

Hockey Jesus: Then we should absolutely then we should absolutely do it.

TD: He would ban. Yeah, let's do it.

Hockey Jesus: I don't know how we're going to get pizza from it.

TD: All right, guys, please go over to YouTube. Subscribe to the sports porch podcast at the sports porch podcast. We're growing that channel. And of course, you can grab the podcast itself. You want to listen in the car or anywhere else on the on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, Spotify or anywhere you get your frigging podcasts. How did our parlay do? Oh, we had a parlay. That's right. The porch picks guys were here. Yeah. Do you want to do you want to check Tick Tock and just see what's going on? You want to grab pull up the Eagle stats because I sure I have Instagram up on my other. screen here and I want to go over. What do you want me to do here? Just see how many people are watching on TikTok if you can find it. So last week we had our two young guys Fade God and Porch Prince on and they gave us a 10-leg parlay to bet $100 to win $21,000. I had a little trouble with the FanDuel thing. This is not an endorsement or a sponsorship by FanDuel. I just tried to get on the FanDuel app to do this. And I was successful at that. But there were some parts of this parlay I couldn't find. I personally don't bet on anything. So this was my first time. So we were originally going to bet the Eagles line, the Eagles plus seven and a half. What I did is I just changed that Eagles to win. So we won that and then Saquon Barkley first TD because I couldn't find the Jalen Carter sack By the way, he didn't get right so we were gonna do sake our ten-leg parlay was Saquon Barley first TD Eagles to win AJ Brown over 50 yards Eagles over 24 23 and a half points worthy touchdown Goddard touchdown hurts touchdown

Hockey Jesus: We didn't get the Goddard touch.

TD: Brown and Kelsey, 10 yards in the first quarter and Goddard over 40 yards. So we did the, the one that killed it for us was the Saquon Barkley first TD when that happened, when it was, it was Cooper Dejean, right?

Hockey Jesus: No, no.

TD: I'm sorry.

Hockey Jesus: The quarterback sneak that I said.

TD: Yeah. Yeah. So, but what we did is we did get the Eagles to win. Uh, AJ Brown did not have over 50 yards receiving. Uh, we got the Eagles points. We got the worthy TD. We got the Hertz TD. We did not get the Brown and Kelsey 10 yards, although we almost did that one pass with Brown interference and the Goddard over 40 yards. Uh, so we only got a couple of them. So we totally blew it. We did poorly. We did poorly.

Grand Schwalbini: we did poorly. But the bottom line is it's so hard to win these parlays. It really is. That's why it's so exciting when somebody wins 50 grand because it was impossible.

Hockey Jesus: Hey, I got it. I got actually an update on the porch fix guys. This predates us, but, um, uh, fade God.

Grand Schwalbini: Yeah.

Hockey Jesus: You know, the Eagles fan. Yeah, he got $50 free. You know, this was about a year ago, and he put it down on the Eagles preseason to win the Super Bowl. Yeah. How much did he get? He won $850. Nice. Yeah. Isn't that cool? That is cool. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Max texted me today, and he said that. I was like, wow. He didn't tell me before. I think he was sworn to secrecy. Yeah, the whole jinx thing. Yeah. nice for sure so these guys are for real they know what they're talking about uh i think they they they let us down a primrose path though with that that 10 parlay because nobody ever wins them yeah and because of the replacement we asked for it though in fairness yeah we did

TD: Uh, because of the replacement picks, I had to, uh, or because of the replacement picks, the odds were greater that we would not hit it. But if we did hit it, we, instead of winning 21,000, we were going to win $51,000 and then fight over it. So it's probably better that we didn't win. Um,

Hockey Jesus: Yeah, because we fight over money here.

TD: Yeah, we do. We don't really fight over money. I just never get any goddamn money out of you guys.

Hockey Jesus: Here comes the fight.

TD: Okay, so let's move on to… Hockey Jesus in the house. We have a, we have a bonafide holy man to my left in the studio. This is hockey Jesus. You can follow hockey Jesus on the podcast at the sports porch podcast. After every single penguins game, he gives his hockey Jesus sermon. Uh, he talks about the state of the penguins and what's going on. I know we have the four nations tournament starting in a couple of days. Sydney's on the second line on the Canadian team or that's where he practiced.

Hockey Jesus: I wouldn't call it the second line.

TD: Some people would. whatever. And so, you know, how are you feeling H.J.?

Hockey Jesus: Well, you know, here's the thing about hockey these days when you're a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. Crosby got injured. Balkan got injured before him. Now rust is out. So basically your three best players and maybe Raquel's in there too. So let's say three or your four top guys are injured. It's, it's a really good time to have a tournament for two weeks. If you're a Pittsburgh Penguins fan, right. That's how I feel right now. I I've, I've already, I've already thrown in the towel on the season. Yeah, I know that. Because the season is over. But if you want to have fun, if the Pittsburgh Penguins go 20-5 in their last 25 games, they'll make the playoffs. 20-5. Yeah, they have to go 20-5. They need 40 points. Right. If they could go 18-7, you're right at that 91, and that's kind of where they were last year, and they didn't make it. That would be worst-case scenario. So I'm kind of hoping that, one, Sydney does well in this Four Nations tournament. I'll talk about that in a second. And, um, so that he gets a little taste of, you know, the goodness, but honestly they had to play without these guys for, uh, against the New York Rangers and they beat the Rangers. I mean, the Rangers teams kind of in trouble. They're, they're, they're, they're, they're their own little entity. They did lose, they did lose to the flyers, but part of that was Did you see that blow that Bloomquist debacle? He tried to clear the puck and he it's the guy and it goes in and then that I Porcht who it went off of maybe it was lot and I'm not sure I think so But he was just smiling because he was just laughing about it because it was so farcical and So but they played really well against the Flyers. I think the Flyers had like three shots midway through the game. And and the Flyers ended up winning. Good for them. I think it's really interesting watching the Flyers and the Penguins play because I think they're both kind of at that same talent level now. And they're both probably going to sell off people. So so I think they're probably going to be competing for about the same spot, maybe like seven, eight, nine in the draft, somewhere around there, probably. and uh… and they do you have to play back-to-back when they get back from this uh… four nations tournament so that probably will decide really yet though if they do a back-to-back to playing in uh… philadelphia and then they're playing in pittsburgh that's a i'm uh… i'm headed to that game it's actually the maxed out which uh… i don't like it and game but you know that the crazy thing about the uh… the the penguins in the flyers is that

Grand Schwalbini: you know, they're not that far off from 500, which, which would leave you to believe like they're okay. Yeah. But then you throw in the loser, but then, yeah, that that's, that's what happens. I mean, you look at the standings and it's like, well, almost everybody is over 500, you know, because of the loser point.

Hockey Jesus: Yeah. You know, in my next talkie Jesus segment, I'm actually going to tackle that. I'm going to show the records without the tie in it. Uh, and then I'm going to normalize it for an 82 game season. And you can see how it separates. And you can see what you have to do. The one team that has done well since the beginning of the year and maybe the only team that has really made a difference has been Detroit. But even now they're starting to fade because you can only do that for so long.

Grand Schwalbini: Well, that's the thing. I mean, the thing is, is though, that for the Penguins or the Flyers, If they, if they go like four and one over five games, they'll be like right in the heat of the playoff battle.

Hockey Jesus: Unfortunately for the Pittsburgh Penguins to get into it. Now I did this actually, they would have to go seven and O to start the start. And then they would be like, right now they're trending at 79 points for the season, which doesn't get you anywhere. If they go seven and O, then they'll suddenly be back up into that 85, 86 range. So now you're in striking distance. So depending on what the other teams do, the only problem with that is when, when I think when they get back, they play Washington, Toronto, Florida flyers, twice Columbus. And then they go on the road and they play the avalanche in Minnesota on the road. So that's eight. I got one wrong, but it's it's something along those lines and you're not going to win all those.

Grand Schwalbini: Right. And the problem with it is you go four and one out of five, but then. you're not good enough as a team, so then the next five, you go one and four. So it's like you're constantly like, oh, we're the worst team in the league. Oh, we're not too bad. We're not far away from the playoffs. Oh, we're the worst team in the league.

Hockey Jesus: I actually did the analysis of points for the year, and I figured it out. You basically have to win every other game, and instead of winning every other game, if you win every other game, you're pretty close to being in the playoffs. So to your point about being 500, The only difference is teams that do that also have like a win streak in there. So they'll, they'll win like four or five in a row. So maybe they'll lose two in a row once or twice. It's no big deal because when you win that seven or eight in a row, you you're banking points for later. And that's really, that's really the game of hockey in a nutshell when it comes to points. don't look at the standings and be like, Oh, they're only three points away from, from, from a wild card spot. That doesn't mean anything. It's, it's, it's about the games that are coming up and how many games you have to win to get to a certain point level. 90 points is the bare minimum. If you look at the average in the NHL playoffs, 90 point is the bare minimum to get in all the, all the teams, the three, the six best teams in the, in the West are trending over a hundred points. So it's tough to, if you're not a real fan and you look at the standings, you're like, Oh, I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. They're in it. They're in it. But that's that's why I say I'm throwing in a towel in the season. That being said, the penguins are going to make some moves. I know last week I said that the Pittsburgh Penguins aren't going to make any moves. I'm retracting that statement. So we're going to have to go back to that tape and get the weight out and wait that out, because I've heard two things that are going to happen for sure. uh, grizzly is going to get traded for sure. There are like three or four teams that, um, that are interested in him. So he's going to go a hundred percent. Um, and, um, they're pretty sure they got a suitor for Matt Nieto, uh, not Nieto, uh, Nolichari. So Nolichari is probably going to be the other guy that's going to go. And honestly, you know, with these, these injuries to, uh, Miro Haskinen down in Dallas and Quinn Hughes in, uh, in Vancouver, it's possible these guys might be interested in getting Carlson. And that would be a big win for the Penguins.

Grand Schwalbini: Do you think that they would trade Carlson versus, do you think there's any chance they'd trade LeTang?

Hockey Jesus: Well, LeTang has a no trade clause and he doesn't want to really be traded. LeTang would have to come to them and be like, I want out. Gotcha. I went out and honestly, if he wanted out, I'm pretty sure Montreal would take him in a heartbeat.

Grand Schwalbini: And that's who he would want to play.

Hockey Jesus: And that's, that's where he, yeah, that's right. That's his home town. So that would make a lot of sense, but he would have to come to management. I think, I think, I think, I think let Tang's here for the duration of his contract, which I believe is three more years. Uh, I think he just likes playing with Sid. It's familiar. And, he still plays a ton of minutes. He does.

Grand Schwalbini: Yeah.

Hockey Jesus: And he's, he's not, he's actually pretty good. I know his plus minus is not great this year. Um, but nobody's is on the penguins except for, um, who'd you say? Bolivia, Bolivia, Bolivia update. He's, he's a plus minus. Actually, he's been playing great in the absence of the guys. You know why? Because he's a veteran guy, and he knows how to play in the top six. There are certain guys that just know how to play in that top six. They can play a lot of minutes. They play with a lot of energy, and they can take over the game when the superstars aren't there to do it themselves. His talent level clearly isn't like Geno's. Maybe, nah, it's still not even the Geno level, the Geno we know now. So that's the penguins. As far as the four nations update, if you're interested, the four nations tournament starts up the four nations tournaments. If you're not a hockey fan, it's four nations, Canada, the USA, Sweden, and Finland. There are the four teams that the four nations that, that, that, where's, where's it going to be on TV?

Grand Schwalbini: a TNT. Okay. So we can watch it.

Hockey Jesus: Yeah. It's in there. They're all eight o'clock starts. It begins Wednesday, uh, except for Saturday, Saturday, there's a one o'clock start in an eight o'clock start. Uh, they play Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, those games are in Montreal. Canada plays Sweden on Wednesday. Thursday, you got USA-Finland. Saturday, you got the doubleheader. You got Finland and Sweden. And the big USA versus Canada. That's the 8 o'clock game on Saturday. That's the one you want to watch. And then they play again on Monday. All four teams play on Monday, the third game of that leg. And then the top two teams out of those points will play next Thursday, a week from Thursday, and they'll play for the championship. And it works off of points. If you win in regulation, three points. If you win in overtime, two points. If you lose in overtime, you get one point. And if you lose outright, you get no points.

Grand Schwalbini: Do you like this deviation from the season or no?

Hockey Jesus: Honestly, I have mixed reviews because I love the talent. Watching these guys play is gonna be a lot of fun.

Grand Schwalbini: Yeah. And there's going to be like very little, um, physical play probably.

Hockey Jesus: So it's going to be, I think there'll be a little, there'll be some physical play. It won't be like an all-star game where they'll just skate around. It'll be a real hockey game for sure. Uh, I mean, you've got all-star defense been on, on both sides. They're not just going to let guys skate around them. you know, um, so it, no, it'll, it'll, they'll be playing for, for, uh, you know, national pride and anytime Canada's in a, in a, in a, in a hockey tournament, they're into it. They really get into it. And that's why, you know, the first three games are in Montreal. The other two games, the Monday and Thursday games are going to be a Boston actually. Um, so, um, so yeah, I, so I love the idea of the talent playing and I think that's going to be a lot of fun to watch. I will absolutely be watching it, but you know how I feel about made up statistics, right? That's kind of how I feel about made up tournaments. Right.

Grand Schwalbini: Right. Right.

Hockey Jesus: It's it's it's nothing. It's just basically a preview because they haven't played in in the Olympics for a while.

Grand Schwalbini: And it's kind of a preview for two years from now when they do when they will play in the I mean I kind of get it if it's for the Olympics but I don't I don't really understand like why. Like to be honest I don't care right now because And I would think a Penguins fan wouldn't care either because the teams aren't that good and it's something fun to watch, right?

Hockey Jesus: That's why I like it because it's going to be fun to watch.

Grand Schwalbini: But if my team was in contention for a title, I would be really annoyed that we're taking like two weeks off of the season to focus on something that doesn't really matter.

Hockey Jesus: I agree with you. Like if I, if I had like, like for example, the Rangers, they have like six players playing, right? Like, and I guess, uh, I guess, uh, she's not playing. He got injured. There are guys that got injured that just aren't going to play. And Sidney was kind of on that list. Um, but because he practiced today, he he'll play, he's going to play with, uh, Well, T.D. says the second line. I say the first line. With McKinnon and Marchant. But of course, on the first line, you know, you got McDavid.

TD: And he's playing with, I think, Nylander. That's just where he prepped. That's what they said. So Hockey Jesus preaches on the podcast. You can follow him on YouTube at the Sports Sports Podcast, and also all over the world on the Apple Podcast, iHeartRadio app or anywhere you get your frigging podcasts. Hockey Jesus, thank you very much. Next Hockey Jesus is going to be

Hockey Jesus: I'm going to have a preview before the Four Nations. It's going to kind of talk about the lines a little bit for the Four Nations, but I'm also going to give an update as to who I think is going to make the playoffs and who can push for the playoffs in both the West and the Eastern Conferences.

TD: Okay, so there is one more prediction here that actually the Grand Schwabini made. He did say the chiefs would go undefeated and lose the Superbowl. You got to lose the Superbowl, right? That's exactly right. And I'm going to go out on a limb before we get to what we're watching. And I'm going to say the Eagles are going to repeat next year. They're going to repeat. It's hard to repeat. Hopefully I'll remember that during our NFL prediction show in August.

SPEAKER_00: Oh, don't worry.

TD: We'll ridicule you. Right. I know you will. Okay, what we are watching. Schwaber, you want to tell us what this is and why we do it? Absolutely. What this is is our service to you.

Grand Schwalbini: You are our fans, we love you, we care about you. And we understand the angst, the turmoil, the disappointment of trying to find that show, and you can't find anything. You keep watching trailers, and you think for a minute, like, maybe this one, eh, nah, I don't think so. And it's rough. Picked for you, picked for you never works. There's so many different things, right? There's Netflix, there's Hulu, there is Apple TV Plus, there is Prime, there is Freebie, Max, Tubie, Boobie, Veebie, Skeebie, Meebie. There's so many, and it's so darn difficult. But listen to us, we're gonna do it for you. We're gonna tell you what's good, what's not good, and then you can have an enjoyable viewing experience.

TD: We're gonna save your downtime, we're gonna make it worthwhile. Yes. Did you give me one this week? I did not. Okay. No, I did not. Okay, we're going to start with the Grand Schwabini. I'm assuming that this is the movie you watched before the Super Bowl.

Grand Schwalbini: Yes, I went out to see Companions. That girl has lovely eyes. What is going on with this? Well, I have to tell you. One of the things I recommend. Is this a horror flick? Interesting, that's what I'm gonna talk about. One of the things that I recommend, I think it's always good to go to a movie with no expectations. I always think it's good to not even watch the trailer, because sometimes the trailer gives away a lot, right? I hear you. I thought from watching the trailer, I thought this was a horror movie. I was completely wrong. It's a sci-fi movie. Is it a love story?

SPEAKER_00: Not really. Is there robot sex? There's robots.

Grand Schwalbini: So let me basically explain it to you. Now I'll say this, we have kind of already ruined one aspect of it, so we'll just run with it since it's already ruined. Sorry. But the idea is, is that this is now like, you know, I guess some point in the future, although it still looks like modern day, right? And you can buy a companion. Of course. And that companion is a robot that falls in love with you. Oh, OK.

Hockey Jesus: You're guaranteed it's going to fall in love with you.

Grand Schwalbini: Yes.

Hockey Jesus: Okay.

Grand Schwalbini: And, and the thing is, is that there's all kinds of settings. Like you can, you know, use your app and they can talk in different languages. You can give them an intelligence level. They could be 30% intelligent or a hundred percent intelligent. They could be 20% angry or a hundred percent angry, you know, and all this kind of stuff. And it was really good. I enjoyed it. It was very interesting and a good watch. I mean, it was just a lot of twists and turns, things that you don't see coming, and I thought it was very creative. Are men buying women robots? They do, and also, men can buy men robots. Oh, okay, yeah, right. Of course.

SPEAKER_00: Can you buy dog robots? It wasn't part of the show. Hippo robots? Maybe, I would assume so. Mosquito robots.

Hockey Jesus: I wouldn't want to put a mosquito robot on 100%.

Grand Schwalbini: No, but it was pretty neat, though. It was pretty neat, and it was like. There are a lot of variables there. And then there's like all these variables of like, You know, can the robots actually learn how to feel? You know, and stuff like that. You know, like if, you know, a certain chain of events happens and stuff like that.

TD: Isn't that part of what they do, is feel? Well, sure. You're talking about, oh, you're talking about emotionally. Yes. Yes. I feel emotional. Right. I knew that already. All right. Companion, a movie. Grant, do you recommend it?

Hockey Jesus: Oh, I recommend it highly. Do you recommend going to the movies to see it? Or can I wait till it shows up on one of these Tubis? I mean, I think you can wait.

Grand Schwalbini: I mean, it's not like I think this is going to show up on boobies. To be honest, to be honest, I think what it comes down to is, look, if you're like me, you just like going to the movies. You know, I like getting the popcorn, the popcorn, the big drink. I like being in the dark. You get any chocolate. Right, yeah, sometimes, but not often. Amy's a big snow caps person. But I like going to the movies. Now, I wouldn't say something is 100% worth going to the movies unless it's like a big time sci-fi, like a Star Wars is worth going to the movies. Yeah, cinematography, yeah, right, I got you. Oh, and you know what, I'm gonna take up your spot tonight by making another review.

Hockey Jesus: Yes, please do.

Grand Schwalbini: Do you want to do it now? You want to do it right now? Sure. All right. So I'm going to review American Primeval. Oh, yeah. Oh, well, yeah, this one's already been done.

Hockey Jesus: If you've been with us. Hold on. You know, T.D. is already given this high praise. I have. Hold on. And Mark has already said that he's been kind of watching it. So I guess he finished. I finished it. I watched it. I haven't finished it.

Grand Schwalbini: No spoilers. OK, no spoilers. I'll say this. I thought it was great. I loved it. However, the technical director proclaims that this is the best show he's ever seen in his entire life. And what I have to say to you about that, sir, is What you're trying to be, is you're trying to be the guy that found that show. No, no, I'm not. You're not that guy. I'm not. You'll never be that guy.

TD: What are you talking about? You're just not that guy. How am I trying to be the guy that found that show? I mean, you know what he's saying. You're overblowing it.

SPEAKER_04: You're taking it to an extreme level. You're overblowing it. And that's what happens. To say, I found this show. No, no, no, no. It's all about you. Yeah.

TD: No, no. He ain't wrong. I did not say this would be the greatest show you have ever watched. I said it's the greatest show I have ever watched. there's a difference. I did not proclaim that the world would consider this the greatest show. I'm just saying, I hear what you're saying, but I still think it's probably the greatest show ever.

Grand Schwalbini: Here's what I would say. First of all, it was a great show. I really enjoyed it. I'm two episodes in. However, if you're going to talk about the best show ever, okay, number one, it has to be more than six episodes. I mean, I don't care how much character development you have in six episodes. It's not enough. Yeah. Like, so you like just using Peaky Blinders as an example, you can't beat Peaky Blinders character development in six episodes. No, you just can't. Right. Right. So that's why I think you need to pump the brakes and just say it's a really darn good show. How about best limited series you've ever seen?

TD: I'll, I'll, I'll, there you go. That wouldn't be a much better proclamation. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, so just ipso facto greatest show I've ever seen. It's going to be the best limited series I've ever seen. So let's use that perspective.

Grand Schwalbini: I will accept that. I have to think about it. Okay. but I will accept that. I would, I would, I'd say for limited series, I might put it in the top five though, for sure. Okay. All right.

Hockey Jesus: It wasn't that far off. It was good. I mean, one season, it's hard to duplicate that one season.

TD: I think, I think the Grant Schwabini is making some very prudent and good points.

Hockey Jesus: It's just trying to help you in your analysis.

TD: While I loved Peaky Blinders, and I do think it is up there with the best shows I've ever watched, the multiple seasons, there's no question the character development over time, obviously, was fantastic. Tell them it was the Peaky Blinders. Exactly. And it's, so you know what? I will back off from that. Okay. And I will say that maybe we need a little more clarification. Yes. And you're absolutely right. I think we arrived at a good place. So then one quick question before we get to my review and then get the hell out of here. Do you think that American Primeval would be deserving of another season? Um, without giving anything away.

Grand Schwalbini: Cause I w I wouldn't because I just think that the way it ended. Yeah. If you do another season, it's like you're, you're destined to for the second season, not to be as good as the first.

TD: Yeah. I don't know.

Hockey Jesus: Maybe they can do another trip. Like, you know, maybe they start in St. Louis.

TD: Well, we can't give away anything. Right. I'm on the fence. I think that the story itself was, was fantastic. Um, and I do think there's room for more, but maybe more of the general situation and less of the individual characters. Uh, how did you feel about the, the, the child actors in that show? Weren't they fantastic? that the young boy was good and the Native American. Yeah, it was like it wasn't. It was like they were fully developed. Yeah, Amy May chiming. Yeah, Amy's ready for another season. That's high praise.

Grand Schwalbini: Yeah. Yeah. But Amy's not telling you the other half of it. The other problem with this show. Don't give way.

SPEAKER_04: No, no, no, no.

Grand Schwalbini: Because I really do want to watch the problem. The problem is I can't get any sleep at night because she's having nightmares from what's going on.

Hockey Jesus: That was like Susan last night. She was like, I was up all night last night because I had a cookie right before we went to bed.

TD: Well, whose fault is that, Susan? Whose fault is that? All right. What we are watching now, I'm going back to something. I have finished season one. I know there are only two seasons. This is along the lines of My Promise. that I would complete this series no matter what. I am watching, or I have completed watching season one of Daryl Dixon, The Walking Dead. I gotta tell you, I like it. I really liked it. Really? Oh, absolutely. I thought it was well done. I actually think it was as good as the ones that live. I'll be honest with you.

Grand Schwalbini: I watched the first episode and I said, no.

TD: Yeah. I know you said because of the whole France thing.

Grand Schwalbini: Yeah. He ended up in France. He's just floating.

TD: He got on a boat. They explain it. See, I remembered that when I watched the first episode and he washes up on shore. Yeah. I remembered you saying that. I don't think I remember you saying that you stopped watching after that episode.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

TD: But I remember you saying that because of that, you couldn't watch it. Right. And I thought, well, They're going to do what they always do. There's going to be an explanation here somewhere. I want to hear the X or C. I want to see the event.

Grand Schwalbini: Was it a satisfactory explanation? Yes. You thought so. Okay. All right.

TD: Okay. It takes a little time to get there, but they do the classic.

Hockey Jesus: It is the walking dead. They take a while to get there.

TD: They do the classic walking dead, like slowly over time. You piece these memories together. And it's like, okay, I see how he could make it. And it actually becomes a, it becomes the reason that he gets there and how he gets there and what happens to him afterwards actually kind of gets interwoven with the story. So it's not a random, like somehow he ended up on a boat and by hook or by crook or by extreme luck, he just washed up on the shores of France. There's a reason that he did what he did. It's pretty good. I, if you're a walking dead fan and you haven't watched, um, uh, Daryl Dixon, I would suggest it. Um, would I watch it before or after the ones that live? I don't think it matters, but I would stick to one or the other. And the next one, the next season of this is the book of Carol. Yeah, because she is still alive. So obviously, you know, somehow they make contact. Yeah, it's a big Carol fan. Yeah, I'm not a big Carol fan. I mean, like, I didn't dislike her. Yeah, but I got a little tired of her act. Yeah. There were a couple times where I was kind of like, if she died here, I don't think the show would suffer.

Grand Schwalbini: You know, it's one of the things that I think is just so weird about the storyline of The Walking Dead. Yeah. You know, they made Negan out to be like the worst guy on the planet. He was. And he was for a time. And he was. But nobody talks about the fact that they all went in you know, Carol and, you know, Rick, and they all went into his crew as they were asleep and put knives in their temples.

SPEAKER_04: I think Negan brings that out at some point. He does. He says at one point, you think I'm so bad. What do you think you've been doing? They're like, well, we're different. But you were really bad. You killed our friend.

TD: Also, I don't think it's lost on anybody that that band of characters, everywhere they seem to go, destruction follows. Oh yeah, always follows. And not always by zombies. No, usually by them.

Grand Schwalbini: You know what's kind of funny too? There's never a problem with food until one day out of the middle of nowhere, it's like, we gotta do something to get food.

SPEAKER_00: It's like a desperate story.

TD: All right, guys. Watch Facebook, YouTube X, LinkedIn and TikTok for a little while. This has been the sports porch, the black and gold edition live all over the world. I'm going to drop the podcast right after the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, Spotify or anywhere you get your friggin podcast. And I'm going to ask you to please go over to YouTube and subscribe to our show. at the Sports Porch podcast. That would be wonderful. You can leave us a review. You can drop a comment every Monday night at 7.30 p.m. Eastern Time. The Grand Swabini for the technical director. I am your technical director in hockey business and whatever. We are out. And so am I. Super Bowl hangover. You're losing steam. Yeah, you are. We are out. Jablonsk.

SPEAKER_04: Jablonsky.

TD: Jablonsk. Jablonsk. That was hard.