The Ryen Russillo Podcast
Wild-Card Weekend Recap: The Jayden Daniels Show, Herbert, Love, and Tomlin Questions, QB Legacy Updates and the Arch Manning Future at Texas With Chris Simms
Mon, 13 Jan 2025
Ryen opens with his thoughts on NFL wild-card weekend, including Jayden Daniels not playing like a playoff rookie and some QB legacy updates from the other matchups (00:40). Then, he chats with NBC’s Chris Simms on whether the Justin Herbert criticism is fair, Mike Tomlin’s future with the Steelers, the huge Ravens-Bills, Lamar vs. Allen showdown, and why he thinks the Eagles might be the best team in football (15:57). Finally, Ceruti and Kyle join for Life Advice, including tracking down stolen AirPods and what to do with a sweaty friend (56:49). Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, livestreams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Chris Simms Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened during NFL Wild Card Weekend?
A packed wildcard weekend. We'll break down the headlines, the stats you should know, and a little QB legacy update potentially as well. Chris Sims breaking down all of the games, what he loved from Jaden Daniels before the draft, obviously what we've loved his rookie year, maybe a peek ahead to Baltimore and Buffalo, and just what teams are doing to certain quarterbacks around the league.
We've got life advice without Oregon, which is a disappointment, but enjoy the podcast. Let's recap NFL Wild Card Weekend. I'm going to recap all of the games with the headline, the stat you should know, when the game was over, and then some other stuff at the very end. We start with Washington's 23-20 win, a walk-off win against the Tampa Bay Bucs.
The headline for this one is that it's Washington ending a massive playoff drought. It's incredible whenever you go back and look at some of these things, but it's the first win for Washington in the playoffs since 2006. It's only their fourth playoff win as a franchise since they won the Super Bowl in 1991. in these numbers every time.
Maybe I'm the only one that's always blown away by some of the droughts that we're Not as familiar with unless you are a fan of that team. Jane Daniels, man, needed one first down to run out the clock and set up the game-winning field goal. It wasn't a touchdown. Obviously, it was a game-winning field goal, but let's talk about what Daniels has done this season.
12 touchdowns in the fourth quarter and overtime this season. That's the most ever for a rookie in NFL history. He had five touchdowns in the last 30 seconds of regulation or overtime, which is two more than any other quarterback since the 1970 NFL merger. If you think about
What it's like, again, as a non-Commanders fan, any of us just watching football, in that moment where you're like, yeah, this rookie QB is going to come in and he'll probably set him up for the game-winning field goal drive because it's what we've been seeing the majority of the season all year long.
To have that kind of confidence, this calming, like, yeah, I'll probably figure this out, against Tampa's defense, where I think it's important to get to some of those numbers and what this team had been doing in the second half, it's just weird. It's weird to watch a rookie QB and think, Yeah, he'll probably just figure this whole thing out. And he did it again.
He completed all three passes on that game winning drive. And then again, the keeper on third and short where he runs it out to his right, dies the first down. So at that point, Tampa is just going to be behind the clock and it's not going to matter. When was it over? I'll do that for all the games. This game actually wasn't even over.
with zeros on the game clock because the kick hit the upright on the right side and then snuck its way through and Washington advances against this Bucs defense where, let's remind you, it's a defense that had given up only nine points total in its last five second halves. They give up 10 in the fourth quarter last night, and now their season is over.
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Chapter 2: Why is Jayden Daniels considered an exceptional rookie quarterback?
Yeah, I liked him a lot, right? I said, I had Caleb Williams in front of him, but I had said many a times in the process, I might even said it on the video, like most years, Jaden Daniels was the number one pick in the draft. He was that special. And I think when I went into it, I went into the evaluation process going, wait, I know the guy's a super good athlete. Obviously, he won the Heisman.
But how strong is his arm? I knew he had two awesome receivers there. How much of it was them? How much of it is him? And then I think the other aspect was like, Man, he's really skinny. Can he take a hit in the NFL? Are we sure that's going to happen? I think those were my early concerns. Then you watch the film and you go, damn, okay, he can make every throw.
And wow, his mechanics and the way he throws the ball are very repeatable. as far as that he's consistent with them. And usually when you look at really high-level, accurate, good throwers, they can emulate their motion perfectly time after time after time and become a machine, right? You know that. Shooting a basketball, throwing a football, whatever it may be. And then you start to get into...
wait like this isn't some guy that just looks to run he wants to play in the pocket he wants to dice you up with his right arm and and what he sees vision wise down the field and then you get into the running and oh wow when when he does run whoa it's special he runs like an NFL wide receiver and And then you saw some of the, hey, he's a little more physical and stronger than I thought he was.
Now, I still thought that would be an issue in the NFL, and that's probably still the number one thing that surprises me. Like you saw last night, he has runs where he just breaks tackles. He bounces off people and gets extra yards, let alone he can hang in the pocket and take people hitting on him as he's throwing the ball.
I think those are the things that just made me start to go, wow, after evaluating him.
So whenever I and again, I do it from a limited amount of understanding, which I just think is important to remind somebody like you to play the position and everything. But there's certain things that I'll look for. I forget who was recently I was talking to or like I look at play calling to kind of tell me how a staff feels about their quarterback. Sure, sure.
I always think that's the best indicator. It's like, well, if this is what they trust him with or don't trust him with, that can confirm or refute some of the preconceived notions I have about a quarterback's ability. What did you see with what Cliff has done this year, maybe even specific to last night? Because he had to move the ball down.
I mean, look, it's a playoff game, so it's not like they were going to be conservative with the whole thing. But what do you see with some of the approach with Kingsbury of what they trust him with that tells you what we should think about Jaden, not just for this year, but the rest of his career?
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