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All right, nightcap recap, NFL week two and a Sunday that really lived up to and exceeded the billings even from week one. W- what a day.
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What, what an ending, Sunday night in Arrowhead in Kansas City after the fireworks show we saw from the debut of Chiefs 2.0 Monday night against the Denver Broncos. They go out and they take care of business.
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They survive, they outlast, they out-muscle the Indianapolis Colts at the end. But you look overall today, seven games decided by one score or less. You had two overtime thrillers, Chiefs/Colts goes down to the wire.
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Cheers to an awesome NFL Sunday. If you're in the live chat, let me know what you're sipping tonight. We got some, uh, some whiskey here that we got here tonight, a, a little bit of Glenlivet.
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Um, uh, so we're gonna, we're gonna go cheers to NFL week two. So yeah, you look at the Chiefs, you look at the Colts game tonight, winds up being Patrick Mahomes' twenty-fifth game-winning drive of his career.
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He remains the ultimate difference-maker. He remains the most clutch quarterback in the NFL, the gold standard that you are, uh, measured against as a quarterback. And, but this isn't any longer just Patrick Mahomes.
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The numbers were off the charts tonight, and I get it. Three hundred and eighty-two yards. Travis Kelce remains the ageless wonder, keeps finding his way open in big spots of the game i- in scoring situations.
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Hundred and one yards and a touchdown for Travis Kelce.
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But Kenneth Walker continues to be the spark for the Kansas City Chiefs version 2.0 that we keep talking about, that we've written about on the site dating back to when Kansas City signed him back in March.
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Hundred and seventeen rushing yards tonight, sixty-one receiving yards, and it was just one of those nights where everything came together for Kansas City.
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And a lot is gonna be made about how Shane Steichen and the Colts handled that final series. A- and I get it, don't get me wrong, I get it. But let's just remember, Daniel Jones is the Colts quarterback, right?
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And Alec Pierce was knocked from this game early on, so in a lot of ways, Steichen was really playing with half a deck compared to what Mahomes brings the Chiefs, to what this Kansas City Chiefs team is doing right now.
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And, and through the first two games, Kansas City has checked every single box. You look at the complete domin- domination and demolition of the Broncos last week.
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You look at outlasting and holding off the Colts tonight in overtime. Um, the Chiefs are right there at the top of the AFC.
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But Kansas City isn't alone, and you look around, and before we get into this, um, w- we're looking at Alvaro checking in, having some whiskey to forget about the Bears game.
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Yeah, that, that was a tough one at Soldier Field. Fortunately, it seems like the Bears might have dodged a worst case scenario with Caleb Williams, um, p- potentially just a hamstring injury.
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And Matthew checks in, "Eagles W, drinking some Stag." Uh, Matthew, make sure you check out the column tomorrow
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because, uh, y- you'll be quite happy with some of the Eagles content and specifically the Jalen Hurts content featured in Four Downs tomorrow morning on the site.
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But I wanna touch on the Bengals because they were one of the leads in tomorrow morning's column.
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They went down to Houston, and they made an absolute statement against the Texans because everybody knows about Joe Burrow. Everybody knows about Ja'Marr Chase.
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What a catch by Ja'Marr Chase, by the way, on that thirty-two-yard touchdown against Derek Stingley Jr.
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I don't know that I've seen five more impressive, three more acrobatic, two more ridiculous catches in my life than the catch that Ja'Marr Chase made on that touchdown early in that game that gave the Bengals a lead that they never gave up.
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But I wanna touch on Al Golden's defense and what Cincinnati is doing defensively, what they did today to C.J. Stroud and the Houston Texans.
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Because remember, going into this year, I spoke to people inside the league for my annual survey before training camp got underway.
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Multiple people, and, and rightfully so, based on the defense that the Texans have built, but multiple executives and coaches believe the Texans belong in the Super Bowl conversation. What did Cincinnati do today?
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They held the Texans to sixty rushing yards. They held the Texans to O for four in the red zone. They sacked C.J. Stroud four times. They hit him six times.
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And the Bengals look easily to me, outside of maybe Kansas City after what we saw tonight, the most complete team in the AFC, but certainly the most balanced, most complete, and most dominant team in the AFC North.
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Clearly the team to beat in that division. And right now, I, I just think of what they're doing defensively, the impact that Dexter Lawrence is making.
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You had that huge, uh, momentum-shifting stop on fourth and short early in that game. You look at Jonathan Allen throwing his weight around in the defensive backfield. And you just look at what the Bengals are doing.
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I know Ja'Marr Chase had the two touchdowns today, but Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins aren't yet firing on all cylinders. But they go down to Houston, and that game was never really all that competitive.
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Sure, it was on the scoreboard, but Houston never really got anything going because of the Bengals' defense, what has been their biggest issue for at least the last five years, at least most of, if not all of the Joe Burrow era, right?
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So cheers to the Cincinnati Bengals and what they're doing. But I'll tell you what, you wanna talk about the AFC North? How about the team that really laid an egg today in Baltimore at home, the Ravens.
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But before we get into the Ravens and what went wrong, um- I, I think the New Orleans Saints look like they're a lot better than a lot of people expected, a lot of people anticipating going into the year, and it certainly looks like Mickey Loomis and that front office and Kevin Moore and that coaching staff were certainly right about Tyler Shuck.
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H-how great was Tyler Shuck today? How great has he looked through the first two weeks? Alvaro checks into Zay Flowers is a big hole when he's out.
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Absolutely right, and we wrote about this in the mailbag on Friday, that Zay Flowers and the speed on the perimeter opens up so much of what the Ravens try to do, what they're best at.
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Unlocks really what Lamar Jackson is best at in the vertical passing game. He's the all-time leading passer rating in the NFL, in NFL history.
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You take a weapon like Zay Flowers out of the equation, and it changes so much.
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But I don't wanna take anything away from what New Orleans did going on the road into shoddy wever- weather, and Tyler Shuck goes out there twenty-seven of thirty-four, two hundred fifty-two yards, a touchdown.
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He rushed for another touchdown in Baltimore of all places, against a really physical defense. And remember, the Saints took the Lions to overtime last week.
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They took Detroit to the brink on the road, and they almost pulled it off. And today, after getting ambushed by Jahmyr Gibbs last week, they had a plan for Derrick Henry.
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They weren't going to let Derrick Henry do to what Jahmyr Gibbs did to them last week. I know he scored a touchdown early on, but they held Derrick Henry to sixty-eight yards and a score on the road outside in the rain.
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Big win for New Orleans. I feel really happy for everybody in that front office getting that win today.
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Some affirmation for Tyler Shuck, and you look at, at the running back Travis Etienne, big pickup for them, moving the chain several times. Big win for Kellen Moore.
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They have some New Orleans going-- some momentum for them, uh, going for them in New Orleans right now.
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And I really wanna hand it tonight to the New E- New England Patriots, because it wasn't all that long ago, really probably about five days ago, that we all watched what happened in Seattle.
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And we all kind of stood up and took notice of the shoddy decision-making, especially at the end. Um, Romeo Doubs coming up small against the Seattle Seahawks.
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That offense really struggling in Seattle against one of the more physical, well-balanced, and dominant defenses. The Patriots answered back today, and Drake May answered back today in a big way with A.J.
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Brown sidelined, and Romeo Doubs had a good bounce-back performance. But most of all, even more than Drake May's kind of pedestrian passing numbers, the Patriots defense played angry from first whistle to final gun.
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They were in Aaron Rodgers' face all afternoon, and if the formula going into this season was pairing Drake May's explosiveness in the vertical passing game with A.J.
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Brown's big play ability and the ability to create separation on the perimeter, it was impressive to see them be able to adapt and evolve to life after Drake May at his best and with A.J.
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Brown being on the shelf for the next four weeks or so. And to me, the story was all about what that defense did today to the Steelers. And, and they were just lying around. They sacked Aaron Rodgers four times.
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They hit him seven times. They forced two fumbles. They recovered one of them. They intercepted Rodgers at the best possible time for the Patriots, the worst possible moment for the Steelers late in that game.
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New England played some swarming, attacking style defense, and it's a huge win for the Patriots. They get back on track. They silence some of the critics.
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They, they right the ship because, you know, the, the mood coming out of that game in Seattle was the sky is falling, doom and gloom, where do you go from here? The bigger picture, though, coming out of that game
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is what do you make of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and where do they go from here? Because what exactly is the plan offensively if that is what you're getting from your quarterback? Michael Pittman Jr.
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didn't get a lot of separation. They really struggled to move the ball.
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But most importantly, Aaron Rodgers looks about as mobile as you'd expect a forty-two-year-old to look, and he looks even more reluctant than that to take a hit, even more reluctant than that than he's ever looked to take a hit in the pocket.
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And he only passed for a hundred and eighty-seven yards and an interception today.
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I, I just think that th- th- this was a miscalculation from everyone involved, Omar Khan, the general manager, Mike McCarthy, the head coach, everyone in that front office to bring Aaron Rodgers back.
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When you saw just how much oil he was leaking by the end of last year, the shell of the quarterback, the shell of the shell of a quarterback that he was by week sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and that playoff loss getting ambushed at home, run out of their own building by the Houston Texans, it, it's time to embrace a rebuild.
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And we led tomorrow's column with the Joey Porter Jr. situation.
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ESPN's Adam Schefter comes out and says that, um, th- there's hope within the building that Porter will be back on the field in week three next Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals. I don't know, man.
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It just feels like the Steelers are long overdue for the rebuild that Art Rooney is habitually and chronically reluctant to pull off. And if I'm the Steelers, and I'm looking at maybe two years of T.J.
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Watt, maybe two years of Cam Heyward, probably the final year for Aaron Rodgers. It should've been last year, the final year for Aaron Rodgers. D.K. Metcalf might be gone after this. If I'm looking at that reality,
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a- and if I can get at least a first-round pick for Joey Porter Jr., I'm pulling the trigger on that trade because you can y- you know, get draft capital ahead of the most anticipated rookie quarterback class in years.
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I, I think there are hard questions in Pittsburgh right now, and this is the type of loss that makes you quickly reconsider avoiding a rebuild because doing so, not rebuilding, continuing to try to piece it together, it feels like that's the quick way, the one-way ticket to backsliding into irrelevance really quickly.
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Sticking in the AFC for a moment, great win for the Raiders. Don't look now, Las Vegas is now two and O, and they're tied atop the standings with the Kansas City Chiefs after today.
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And my biggest takeaway, my biggest observation from a Vegas standpoint from that game, from that win today, is that if Kirk Cousins is supposed to be the training wheels for that offense, to get everybody up to speed with what Klint Kubiak likes to do best, to get everybody, including Ashton Jeanty, up and running full speed ahead, to get Jack Becht involved, um, to get the playmakers involved.
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If, if he's the training wheels, Kirk Cousins, just imagine the offense that Fernando Mendoza is going to walk into in a few weeks or a few months or next year. Who knows when?
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After Kirk Cousins puts up three hundred and five yards of total offense for the Raiders, big win for Las Vegas. They're feeling themselves. They're two and O. They're tied atop the division. But more importantly,
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this is yet another week and another really disappointing performance from Justin Herbert. And yeah, the Chargers offensive line is in a bit of shambles, especially the interior. Not, not a great showing again.
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But there was a quarterback who went down to Tennessee today and overcame another patchwork offensive line, another quarterback who faced some adversity and threw an early interception in the game, and that quarterback
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led a sixty-one yard game-winning drive and tossed the game-winning touchdown at the buzzer. Um, th-that quarterback was Jalen Hurts.
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That quarterback was named MVP of the week in the column tomorrow morning for a lot of obvious reasons.
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But Justin Herbert was held today by the Raiders a hundred and ninety-two yards, one touchdown, two interceptions, and a fifty-nine point five passer rating.
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And look, the interception that bounced off David Njoku's hands about five or six times before being picked off in the middle of the air, that's not exactly on Justin Herbert.
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But his accuracy overall seems to be regressing right now.
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And when you watch the game, when you go back and you watch the All-22 afterwards, it just seems like Justin Herbert is a hair late on a lot of these throws in Mike McDaniel's offense through the first two games.
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A-and, you know, the Chargers are what they are. The offense is what it is. Maybe they figure it out. Maybe Herbert turns a corner.
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But it's getting harder and harder for Justin Herbert to shake the overrated tag based on his performance against the Cardinals last week and the Raiders today.
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Those hollow numbers that Herbert used to survive on, that he made a reputation about, that he built a career around, they're just pedestrian at this point.
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Uh, Alvaro checks in, "Are the Chargers going to win a game before October?" I don't have the schedule in front of me, but they're gonna g- need to get a lot more from their quarterback than that.
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And, um, unfortunately for you Bears Alvaro, I, I don't know what you make of this.
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I don't know where you go from here, because even before Caleb Williams got hurt, Brian Flores did an outstanding job of dragging that offense down into the quicksand.
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And even though the running backs are there with D'Andre Swift, with Kyle Munonge, th-they both busted out a couple of big runs, they couldn't move the football today.
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Caleb Williams couldn't get anything going in the vertical passing game today. Cole Kmet had a couple of bad drops. Colston Loveland had a couple of bad drops. Not a lot of help from Caleb Williams' weapons.
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That was a far cry and a shell of the offense that we saw go down to Charlotte last week and hang fifty-nine on the Panthers. That, that was a really troubling and worrisome regression.
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But what I will say for Minnesota, hey, hey, man, you're, you're two and O, and you, you've, you've found proof of concept. You've found that your defense can lead the way.
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You've found that if you just, you know, relentlessly pressure the quarterback with all of the, uh, aggressive blitz packages that Brian Flores draws up, you're gonna win your share of football games.
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Carson Wentz puts up three field goals. Th-They only cross into Bears territory three times. They win the game nine to three. Like, eh.
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I, I just look at Minnesota right now, they are not a team that I would wanna see on the schedule. So, uh, it was a ton of fun across the NFL today. We have a really fun matchup tomorrow night.
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The Giants looking for further validation, going out to Los Angeles, out to SoFi Stadium against the Rams, who look to prove that it was just a jet flag against the-- a jet lag against the, the, the San Francisco forty-niners last week.
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So it should be a fun matchup there. Can Matthew Stafford get back on track against a patchwork and banged-up, uh, Giants secondary? But thanks to everybody who hung out here.
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Uh, if you haven't subscribed yet, please go ahead and subscribe at betweenthehashmarks.com. Don't miss tomorrow's Four Downs column. It is loaded with insight on the Joey Porter situation. We have some best fits.
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We have insight from a general manager on Porter's trade value. And a rival executive kind of sounds the alarm on the, uh, Pittsburgh Steelers and their roster construction.
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We have some quotes from some current players from the action today. Fresh off the field exclusive quotes to us in the column. Um, was a ton of fun to put together. Hope you check it out there.
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Uh, if you're watching on YouTube, thank you. If not, please go and subscribe on YouTube at Matt Lombardo nine seven five. Uh, we're closing in on a thousand subscribers. We're closing in on four thousand watch hours.
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That's a big tribute to the audience, and I am continually grateful for the support and appreciative of the continued support of my work, whether you read, subscribe, or follow along.
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But, uh, have a great night, everybody. These Nightcap Recaps are a lot of fun. Uh, I'll be back on Tuesday with Mike Tanya for another edition of the Between the Hash Marks podcast.
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And Sunday night, let's keep the tradition rolling. The Nightcap Roll- Recaps roll on. I'm Matt Lombardo. Enjoy the night, everybody, and, uh, thanks for checking us out here at Between the Hash Marks.
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All right, nightcap recap, NFL week two and a Sunday that really lived up to and exceeded the billings even from week one. W- what a day.
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What, what an ending, Sunday night in Arrowhead in Kansas City after the fireworks show we saw from the debut of Chiefs 2.0 Monday night against the Denver Broncos. They go out and they take care of business.
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They survive, they outlast, they out-muscle the Indianapolis Colts at the end. But you look overall today, seven games decided by one score or less. You had two overtime thrillers, Chiefs/Colts goes down to the wire.
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Cheers to an awesome NFL Sunday. If you're in the live chat, let me know what you're sipping tonight. We got some, uh, some whiskey here that we got here tonight, a, a little bit of Glenlivet.
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Um, uh, so we're gonna, we're gonna go cheers to NFL week two. So yeah, you look at the Chiefs, you look at the Colts game tonight, winds up being Patrick Mahomes' twenty-fifth game-winning drive of his career.
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He remains the ultimate difference-maker. He remains the most clutch quarterback in the NFL, the gold standard that you are, uh, measured against as a quarterback. And, but this isn't any longer just Patrick Mahomes.
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The numbers were off the charts tonight, and I get it. Three hundred and eighty-two yards. Travis Kelce remains the ageless wonder, keeps finding his way open in big spots of the game i- in scoring situations.
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Hundred and one yards and a touchdown for Travis Kelce.
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But Kenneth Walker continues to be the spark for the Kansas City Chiefs version 2.0 that we keep talking about, that we've written about on the site dating back to when Kansas City signed him back in March.
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Hundred and seventeen rushing yards tonight, sixty-one receiving yards, and it was just one of those nights where everything came together for Kansas City.
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And a lot is gonna be made about how Shane Steichen and the Colts handled that final series. A- and I get it, don't get me wrong, I get it. But let's just remember, Daniel Jones is the Colts quarterback, right?
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And Alec Pierce was knocked from this game early on, so in a lot of ways, Steichen was really playing with half a deck compared to what Mahomes brings the Chiefs, to what this Kansas City Chiefs team is doing right now.
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And, and through the first two games, Kansas City has checked every single box. You look at the complete domin- domination and demolition of the Broncos last week.
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You look at outlasting and holding off the Colts tonight in overtime. Um, the Chiefs are right there at the top of the AFC.
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But Kansas City isn't alone, and you look around, and before we get into this, um, w- we're looking at Alvaro checking in, having some whiskey to forget about the Bears game.
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Yeah, that, that was a tough one at Soldier Field. Fortunately, it seems like the Bears might have dodged a worst case scenario with Caleb Williams, um, p- potentially just a hamstring injury.
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And Matthew checks in, "Eagles W, drinking some Stag." Uh, Matthew, make sure you check out the column tomorrow
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because, uh, y- you'll be quite happy with some of the Eagles content and specifically the Jalen Hurts content featured in Four Downs tomorrow morning on the site.
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But I wanna touch on the Bengals because they were one of the leads in tomorrow morning's column.
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They went down to Houston, and they made an absolute statement against the Texans because everybody knows about Joe Burrow. Everybody knows about Ja'Marr Chase.
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What a catch by Ja'Marr Chase, by the way, on that thirty-two-yard touchdown against Derek Stingley Jr.
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I don't know that I've seen five more impressive, three more acrobatic, two more ridiculous catches in my life than the catch that Ja'Marr Chase made on that touchdown early in that game that gave the Bengals a lead that they never gave up.
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But I wanna touch on Al Golden's defense and what Cincinnati is doing defensively, what they did today to C.J. Stroud and the Houston Texans.
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Because remember, going into this year, I spoke to people inside the league for my annual survey before training camp got underway.
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Multiple people, and, and rightfully so, based on the defense that the Texans have built, but multiple executives and coaches believe the Texans belong in the Super Bowl conversation. What did Cincinnati do today?
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They held the Texans to sixty rushing yards. They held the Texans to O for four in the red zone. They sacked C.J. Stroud four times. They hit him six times.
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And the Bengals look easily to me, outside of maybe Kansas City after what we saw tonight, the most complete team in the AFC, but certainly the most balanced, most complete, and most dominant team in the AFC North.
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Clearly the team to beat in that division. And right now, I, I just think of what they're doing defensively, the impact that Dexter Lawrence is making.
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You had that huge, uh, momentum-shifting stop on fourth and short early in that game. You look at Jonathan Allen throwing his weight around in the defensive backfield. And you just look at what the Bengals are doing.
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I know Ja'Marr Chase had the two touchdowns today, but Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins aren't yet firing on all cylinders. But they go down to Houston, and that game was never really all that competitive.
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Sure, it was on the scoreboard, but Houston never really got anything going because of the Bengals' defense, what has been their biggest issue for at least the last five years, at least most of, if not all of the Joe Burrow era, right?
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So cheers to the Cincinnati Bengals and what they're doing. But I'll tell you what, you wanna talk about the AFC North? How about the team that really laid an egg today in Baltimore at home, the Ravens.
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But before we get into the Ravens and what went wrong, um- I, I think the New Orleans Saints look like they're a lot better than a lot of people expected, a lot of people anticipating going into the year, and it certainly looks like Mickey Loomis and that front office and Kevin Moore and that coaching staff were certainly right about Tyler Shuck.
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H-how great was Tyler Shuck today? How great has he looked through the first two weeks? Alvaro checks into Zay Flowers is a big hole when he's out.
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Absolutely right, and we wrote about this in the mailbag on Friday, that Zay Flowers and the speed on the perimeter opens up so much of what the Ravens try to do, what they're best at.
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Unlocks really what Lamar Jackson is best at in the vertical passing game. He's the all-time leading passer rating in the NFL, in NFL history.
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You take a weapon like Zay Flowers out of the equation, and it changes so much.
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But I don't wanna take anything away from what New Orleans did going on the road into shoddy wever- weather, and Tyler Shuck goes out there twenty-seven of thirty-four, two hundred fifty-two yards, a touchdown.
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He rushed for another touchdown in Baltimore of all places, against a really physical defense. And remember, the Saints took the Lions to overtime last week.
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They took Detroit to the brink on the road, and they almost pulled it off. And today, after getting ambushed by Jahmyr Gibbs last week, they had a plan for Derrick Henry.
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They weren't going to let Derrick Henry do to what Jahmyr Gibbs did to them last week. I know he scored a touchdown early on, but they held Derrick Henry to sixty-eight yards and a score on the road outside in the rain.
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Big win for New Orleans. I feel really happy for everybody in that front office getting that win today.
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Some affirmation for Tyler Shuck, and you look at, at the running back Travis Etienne, big pickup for them, moving the chain several times. Big win for Kellen Moore.
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They have some New Orleans going-- some momentum for them, uh, going for them in New Orleans right now.
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And I really wanna hand it tonight to the New E- New England Patriots, because it wasn't all that long ago, really probably about five days ago, that we all watched what happened in Seattle.
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And we all kind of stood up and took notice of the shoddy decision-making, especially at the end. Um, Romeo Doubs coming up small against the Seattle Seahawks.
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That offense really struggling in Seattle against one of the more physical, well-balanced, and dominant defenses. The Patriots answered back today, and Drake May answered back today in a big way with A.J.
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Brown sidelined, and Romeo Doubs had a good bounce-back performance. But most of all, even more than Drake May's kind of pedestrian passing numbers, the Patriots defense played angry from first whistle to final gun.
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They were in Aaron Rodgers' face all afternoon, and if the formula going into this season was pairing Drake May's explosiveness in the vertical passing game with A.J.
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Brown's big play ability and the ability to create separation on the perimeter, it was impressive to see them be able to adapt and evolve to life after Drake May at his best and with A.J.
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Brown being on the shelf for the next four weeks or so. And to me, the story was all about what that defense did today to the Steelers. And, and they were just lying around. They sacked Aaron Rodgers four times.
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They hit him seven times. They forced two fumbles. They recovered one of them. They intercepted Rodgers at the best possible time for the Patriots, the worst possible moment for the Steelers late in that game.
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New England played some swarming, attacking style defense, and it's a huge win for the Patriots. They get back on track. They silence some of the critics.
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They, they right the ship because, you know, the, the mood coming out of that game in Seattle was the sky is falling, doom and gloom, where do you go from here? The bigger picture, though, coming out of that game
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is what do you make of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and where do they go from here? Because what exactly is the plan offensively if that is what you're getting from your quarterback? Michael Pittman Jr.
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didn't get a lot of separation. They really struggled to move the ball.
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But most importantly, Aaron Rodgers looks about as mobile as you'd expect a forty-two-year-old to look, and he looks even more reluctant than that to take a hit, even more reluctant than that than he's ever looked to take a hit in the pocket.
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And he only passed for a hundred and eighty-seven yards and an interception today.
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I, I just think that th- th- this was a miscalculation from everyone involved, Omar Khan, the general manager, Mike McCarthy, the head coach, everyone in that front office to bring Aaron Rodgers back.
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When you saw just how much oil he was leaking by the end of last year, the shell of the quarterback, the shell of the shell of a quarterback that he was by week sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and that playoff loss getting ambushed at home, run out of their own building by the Houston Texans, it, it's time to embrace a rebuild.
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And we led tomorrow's column with the Joey Porter Jr. situation.
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ESPN's Adam Schefter comes out and says that, um, th- there's hope within the building that Porter will be back on the field in week three next Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals. I don't know, man.
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It just feels like the Steelers are long overdue for the rebuild that Art Rooney is habitually and chronically reluctant to pull off. And if I'm the Steelers, and I'm looking at maybe two years of T.J.
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Watt, maybe two years of Cam Heyward, probably the final year for Aaron Rodgers. It should've been last year, the final year for Aaron Rodgers. D.K. Metcalf might be gone after this. If I'm looking at that reality,
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a- and if I can get at least a first-round pick for Joey Porter Jr., I'm pulling the trigger on that trade because you can y- you know, get draft capital ahead of the most anticipated rookie quarterback class in years.
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I, I think there are hard questions in Pittsburgh right now, and this is the type of loss that makes you quickly reconsider avoiding a rebuild because doing so, not rebuilding, continuing to try to piece it together, it feels like that's the quick way, the one-way ticket to backsliding into irrelevance really quickly.
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Sticking in the AFC for a moment, great win for the Raiders. Don't look now, Las Vegas is now two and O, and they're tied atop the standings with the Kansas City Chiefs after today.
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And my biggest takeaway, my biggest observation from a Vegas standpoint from that game, from that win today, is that if Kirk Cousins is supposed to be the training wheels for that offense, to get everybody up to speed with what Klint Kubiak likes to do best, to get everybody, including Ashton Jeanty, up and running full speed ahead, to get Jack Becht involved, um, to get the playmakers involved.
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If, if he's the training wheels, Kirk Cousins, just imagine the offense that Fernando Mendoza is going to walk into in a few weeks or a few months or next year. Who knows when?
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After Kirk Cousins puts up three hundred and five yards of total offense for the Raiders, big win for Las Vegas. They're feeling themselves. They're two and O. They're tied atop the division. But more importantly,
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this is yet another week and another really disappointing performance from Justin Herbert. And yeah, the Chargers offensive line is in a bit of shambles, especially the interior. Not, not a great showing again.
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But there was a quarterback who went down to Tennessee today and overcame another patchwork offensive line, another quarterback who faced some adversity and threw an early interception in the game, and that quarterback
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led a sixty-one yard game-winning drive and tossed the game-winning touchdown at the buzzer. Um, th-that quarterback was Jalen Hurts.
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That quarterback was named MVP of the week in the column tomorrow morning for a lot of obvious reasons.
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But Justin Herbert was held today by the Raiders a hundred and ninety-two yards, one touchdown, two interceptions, and a fifty-nine point five passer rating.
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And look, the interception that bounced off David Njoku's hands about five or six times before being picked off in the middle of the air, that's not exactly on Justin Herbert.
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But his accuracy overall seems to be regressing right now.
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And when you watch the game, when you go back and you watch the All-22 afterwards, it just seems like Justin Herbert is a hair late on a lot of these throws in Mike McDaniel's offense through the first two games.
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A-and, you know, the Chargers are what they are. The offense is what it is. Maybe they figure it out. Maybe Herbert turns a corner.
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But it's getting harder and harder for Justin Herbert to shake the overrated tag based on his performance against the Cardinals last week and the Raiders today.
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Those hollow numbers that Herbert used to survive on, that he made a reputation about, that he built a career around, they're just pedestrian at this point.
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Uh, Alvaro checks in, "Are the Chargers going to win a game before October?" I don't have the schedule in front of me, but they're gonna g- need to get a lot more from their quarterback than that.
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And, um, unfortunately for you Bears Alvaro, I, I don't know what you make of this.
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I don't know where you go from here, because even before Caleb Williams got hurt, Brian Flores did an outstanding job of dragging that offense down into the quicksand.
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And even though the running backs are there with D'Andre Swift, with Kyle Munonge, th-they both busted out a couple of big runs, they couldn't move the football today.
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Caleb Williams couldn't get anything going in the vertical passing game today. Cole Kmet had a couple of bad drops. Colston Loveland had a couple of bad drops. Not a lot of help from Caleb Williams' weapons.
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That was a far cry and a shell of the offense that we saw go down to Charlotte last week and hang fifty-nine on the Panthers. That, that was a really troubling and worrisome regression.
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But what I will say for Minnesota, hey, hey, man, you're, you're two and O, and you, you've, you've found proof of concept. You've found that your defense can lead the way.
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You've found that if you just, you know, relentlessly pressure the quarterback with all of the, uh, aggressive blitz packages that Brian Flores draws up, you're gonna win your share of football games.
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Carson Wentz puts up three field goals. Th-They only cross into Bears territory three times. They win the game nine to three. Like, eh.
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I, I just look at Minnesota right now, they are not a team that I would wanna see on the schedule. So, uh, it was a ton of fun across the NFL today. We have a really fun matchup tomorrow night.
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The Giants looking for further validation, going out to Los Angeles, out to SoFi Stadium against the Rams, who look to prove that it was just a jet flag against the-- a jet lag against the, the, the San Francisco forty-niners last week.
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So it should be a fun matchup there. Can Matthew Stafford get back on track against a patchwork and banged-up, uh, Giants secondary? But thanks to everybody who hung out here.
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Uh, if you haven't subscribed yet, please go ahead and subscribe at betweenthehashmarks.com. Don't miss tomorrow's Four Downs column. It is loaded with insight on the Joey Porter situation. We have some best fits.
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We have insight from a general manager on Porter's trade value. And a rival executive kind of sounds the alarm on the, uh, Pittsburgh Steelers and their roster construction.
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We have some quotes from some current players from the action today. Fresh off the field exclusive quotes to us in the column. Um, was a ton of fun to put together. Hope you check it out there.
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Uh, if you're watching on YouTube, thank you. If not, please go and subscribe on YouTube at Matt Lombardo nine seven five. Uh, we're closing in on a thousand subscribers. We're closing in on four thousand watch hours.
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That's a big tribute to the audience, and I am continually grateful for the support and appreciative of the continued support of my work, whether you read, subscribe, or follow along.
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But, uh, have a great night, everybody. These Nightcap Recaps are a lot of fun. Uh, I'll be back on Tuesday with Mike Tanya for another edition of the Between the Hash Marks podcast.
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And Sunday night, let's keep the tradition rolling. The Nightcap Roll- Recaps roll on. I'm Matt Lombardo. Enjoy the night, everybody, and, uh, thanks for checking us out here at Between the Hash Marks.
