SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
As BJ Leiderman's theme music reminds us, it's time for sports.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIMON: Warm up those leftovers for football, NFL contenders and pretenders. Meadowlark Media's Howard Bryant join us. Howard, thanks so much for being with us.
HOWARD BRYANT: Good morning, Scott. How are you?
SIMON: I'm fine, thanks, my friend. Listen, Thanksgiving week - typically, the, you know, point of the NFL season when you have an idea of who's for real, who's not. I'm going to say the Detroit Lions are the best team in the league, but you can't underestimate the Buffalo Bills, the Philadelphia Eagles and - I'm trying to remember - oh, yeah, the Kansas City Chiefs.
BRYANT: (Laughter).
SIMON: What do you see in that lineup?
BRYANT: I'm going to agree 100% with you along two lines. One, yes, the team that's playing the best football...
SIMON: (Imitating growling).
BRYANT: ...Is the Detroit Lions. And, you know - exactly - you know, take the wax out of your ears. Yes, I said that. You did not mishear that. The Detroit Lions are the best team in the National Football League. They lost their first game, and then they've won 10 in a row. They win big games. They win close games. They've got, you know, Jared Goff, who's been to a Super Bowl, you know? They were on the cusp last year. They almost beat the 49ers and had a chance to go to the Super Bowl last year. So they're the team on the upswing. On the other hand, you still have the two-time defending champion Kansas City Chiefs, with Patrick Mahomes - probably one of the best quarterbacks of all time by this point.
SIMON: Yeah.
BRYANT: And they're really good, but they're not that good. We just keep saying it. They just keep winning. How is that? And so, once again, they played yesterday. They played the Raiders.
SIMON: They figure out a way to win.
BRYANT: They always...
SIMON: That is the mark of a great team. Yeah.
BRYANT: Yeah. And so what happens is with teams like this, when you've got these championship teams - and you saw it with the old Cowboys and the old 49ers and the Patriots, and now you're seeing it with the Chiefs, where you're not just playing them. You're playing their aura. And when you're playing that aura of a team, you know, against a legendary team, you just make a ton of mistakes. And we just saw that again. The Raiders should have beaten them twice this year and lost both times. You know, they're 11 and 1. But once again, they've only got a 54-point differential. Like, every game is really, really close. So they're great.
Don't forget Philadelphia - always a good team, you know, kind of weird, but really good. And then there's Buffalo, the one team to have actually beaten the Chiefs. And Buffalo has been knocking on the door for forever. So you got to go with those three. Everybody else is sort of in the pack. But I think those are the three that you got to watch.
SIMON: Listen, the Chicago Bears made news this week in all the wrong ways (laughter). They wind up firing their head coach for the first time in midseason - Matt Eberflus - what can only be described as and is described as disastrous clock management, OK? They were down by three points, 32 seconds to go, one timeout remaining - a timeout they didn't call, Howard.
BRYANT: (Laughter).
SIMON: What happened?
BRYANT: Oh, my goodness. It's a disaster, and it cost him - you know, it cost Matt his job. And it's - this is the stuff. You sit here, and we watch these games, and we look at them for our entertainment. These are careers on the line here. You're going to wonder if he has another opportunity the way you lose that game. Eberflus is a guy who is - you know, he's had the worst record in, I believe, history of the - in the - or third worst, I think - in the history of the franchise.
SIMON: Yeah.
BRYANT: It's going to be really hard for him to turn that around. And you look - he's the third guy fired this year. Robert Saleh already got it with the Jets. Dennis Allen got it with the Saints. You go look at the WNBA. They've got 12 teams, Scott. They fired seven coaches. And so these games are fun to watch with your turkey and to hang out on Sundays, but the pressure to perform is real. And it's going to be really interesting to see what happens with his career. Now, on the other hand, you also lose a national televised game when you're the guy with the rookie quarterback. You're supposed to be helping him out.
SIMON: Yeah.
BRYANT: And was it a justifiable firing?
SIMON: By the way, Howard, we have 32 seconds. Should I call a timeout?
(LAUGHTER)
BRYANT: Oh, my goodness. And he's going to hear those jokes for the rest of his life until he gets another job and turns it around.
SIMON: You know, you're right. The same kind of insufferable joke I just made - I mean, people are going to go up to Matt Eberflus for the rest of his life and say, oh, we only got 30 seconds. You want to call the timeout now, right? Oh.
Howard Bryant of Meadowlark Media. Thanks so much for being with us, Howard. You always come through, OK?
BRYANT: Use your timeouts wisely, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
