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#98. The Substandard Big Game Post Game Show!
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Dudes Chatting — Eagles Super Bowl victory post-game: A celebratory micro-episode recorded the night of Super Bowl LII. JVL, a Philadelphia Eagles fan, is on an emotional high — he calls it the happiest he has been about a sporting event since age 12, and describes watching with family and a Worcester-born Patriots-fan brother-in-law, both convinced their side would lose. The guys revel in the Philadelphia street chaos: Sonny singles out the infamous horse-poop-eating fan as the defining image, JVL marvels at light poles being uprooted and the Ritz-Carlton awning collapsing, and Vic draws a comparison to a peer-pressured ashtray-eating incident from his own past. The second half turns to the Eagles' quarterback question: JVL makes a passionate case for keeping Nick Foles (106 QB rating in the Super Bowl, 115 for the postseason) over Carson Wentz, arguing the "bird in the hand" principle; Sonny pushes back that Wentz is six years younger and was an MVP frontrunner before his injury. JVL closes by admitting he celebrated with champagne and illegal fireworks.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00And they're going to snap it, and it's Trey Burton who throws court! Foles! Touchdown! And watch all the action. Foles is going to sneak over here, direct snap, everybody comes up, and here we go. What a play call by Doug Peterson. This play call has a chance to be remembered as one of the all-time greats.
JVL00:00:25Did I distract you with all the winning over here?
Guest00:00:26Yes, yes you did.
Vic00:00:30Hello and welcome to another micro-episode of The Substandard, sponsored by the Black Tux. I'm Victor Matus, along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a quick reminder that full episodes of The Substandard are available every Thursday at 11 a.m. Welcome to the big game post-game show. The big game. The big game post-big game show. JVL, go. Was there a... Football game on last night? I didn't know about that. Are you sad that your team won because, as you told us last episode, last main episode, they need to lose. They should lose for the sake of the city.
JVL00:01:13Look, I will say this. It's all downhill from here. Clearly, this was what I wanted and not what I needed. There is, beginning 72 hours from now, nothing but misery, toil, and blood. And tears.
Vic00:01:32But for right now, it's amazing.
JVL00:01:34I am the happiest I have ever been about a sporting event since age 12. What happened at age 12? I don't even remember. But age 12 was the last time that I actually cared. That you remember happiness? No, that I cared about sports in a way that, like, a real way. A way that affected my actual attitude front-facing the world. And because little boys do that. Like, little boys get... Like, actually happy or sad when their sports team wins or loses. And then you grow up and you leave that behind and you do your own things. And I am as surprised as anybody else that this has actually affected the way I feel about myself and my view of the world for a few hours.
Vic00:02:16Your city is a winning city. They have, within the last five or so years, won a World Series and now a Super Bowl. Perhaps a Stanley Cup.
JVL00:02:23It's been nine years since the World Series.
Vic00:02:25Has it been nine years already? Wow. Yeah. But it's more than... For example, Washington, D.C., which hasn't won a World Series, hasn't won a Super Bowl since 91, 92, rather. They won, like, three Super Bowls when I was a kid. Yeah, but not since 92. Yeah, okay. And Stanley Cup. Don't take the short view. And it's not since Wes Unseld. And so that's, you know, that's... This is a lousy sport, this town. This town doesn't deserve victory. But Philadelphia now has two, three... Wait, when did they win the Stanley Cup? Recently, too. Didn't they win the Stanley Cup? I don't know. I don't believe so. Okay.
Sonny00:02:56What is the Stanley Cup for? It's something involving ice. And, um... What is it? I don't... It's for ice soccer. That's what you... When you win ice soccer, they give you a cup. I didn't realize that that was a thing that people celebrated. No, apparently they do.
Vic00:03:11No, apparently they do. Oh, yeah.
JVL00:03:12Up in Canada.
Vic00:03:13Canada. And the other thing is this. I always thought this was funny because, you know, after a big win for a major sporting event like the Super Bowl, you're going to have a big parade, obviously, down, you know, downfield. In Philly. Whereas people will die. Well, okay. I don't know. Did anyone die last night?
JVL00:03:36I don't think so, but oh my God, did you see what was happening? Did you people see what was happening in Philadelphia last night? What was your favorite Philly thing that you saw from last night?
Sonny00:03:48I mean, there's only one option here. It's the guy who ate the horse shit. The guy in the Cunningham jersey? The guy who ate... The guy who literally... I don't even... This is a celebratory thing?
JVL00:04:01You are missing the gold. It isn't that he ate the horse shit. It's that before leaning down to the horse shit, he very daintily takes his scarf and throws it out of the way, so the scarf doesn't get any horse poop on it. Well, you don't want to get horse poop on it. He doesn't want that to happen. Well, because if that happens...
Sonny00:04:18He just wants to eat some. Well, if you get the scarf and the horse poop, then you have to take it to a cleaner. You have to get a dry clean. That costs money.
Vic00:04:25Philly is so awesome.
Sonny00:04:26It takes time.
JVL00:04:27My favorite thing might have been...
Vic00:04:29He kissed his wife immediately after.
JVL00:04:31I don't think he's married. I don't think... He gave in to peer pressure, didn't he? I don't think that Tony from Maniunk is married. So, the Ritz-Carlton. Did you see what happened with the Ritz-Carlton?
Sonny00:04:43Oh, the collapse of the Ritz-Carlton.
JVL00:04:45It began with a single fan making his way to the top of the Ritz-Carlton awning. Yes. And then... I've been there. And then, almost famous style, I am a golden god, like jumping off into the crowd. Okay. He survives, which prompts lots of other people to climb up onto the awning of the Ritz-Carlton. Why the Ritz-Carlton? I don't know.
Vic00:05:06It's right by the fountain. Because it's there.
JVL00:05:08Yeah. It's beautiful. The Ritz-Carlton awning then collapses. Of course. The Philly fans, undeterred by this, totally undeterred, strip the fabric covering from the awning and then drag it through the streets of Center City as if they are from Mogadishu. It's a war trophy. It's a war trophy.
Vic00:05:28It was so...
JVL00:05:29They didn't just climb the light poles. They then somehow took the light poles out of the ground and carried these, like, 35-foot tubular steel things through the city like, ah, look what we did. Unbelievably awesome.
Sonny00:05:44I have to say... What a city. This is... I mean, we treat this as if it's fun and games and, you know, humorous and amusing. Yeah, we treat it as if it's awesome. But it's...
Vic00:05:56But, I mean, like, if... This is...
Sonny00:05:59This is a million times worse than, like, the Rodney King riots, because at least then people were mad.
JVL00:06:05But everybody was happy.
Sonny00:06:06But at least then... Because at least then people... Everybody was happy. I'm going to tell you this. People were mad and had a reason to be mad. You know what? And this is like, we're happy, so we're destroying our town.
Vic00:06:13You know what, Sonny? I bet you during the L.A. riots, nobody ate horse poop.
Sonny00:06:17Probably true. Because, oh, God, probably true. But the... But, I mean, like, they sacked a wah-wah. Yeah, well, you know. The wah. That's the only thing that is good about Philadelphia, I've been led to believe. I mean, wah-wah is no sheets, but, like, it's pretty good for what it is, which is a gas station sandwich shop. And they sacked it. Like, the goths. Streaming into Rome. You're going to get some sacking. Running out. Running out with bags of chips. You're going to get some sacking. Look.
JVL00:06:45Imagine. So imagine one of those two touchdown calls goes the other way. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry. Hold on.
Sonny00:06:49Hold on one second. Because the thing that's worse... There's some mild sacking. The thing is...
JVL00:06:53Some light sacking.
Sonny00:06:54The worst thing about sacking the wah-wah is that you don't even... Or the sandwiches. Because it's not like somebody's sitting there in the back making the sandwiches while you're running out with them without paying.
JVL00:07:06I don't think that the Maniunk hordes were interested in waiting around for the guy behind the grill at the wah-wah to make them a sandwich. Do you?
Sonny00:07:15Look, that's my point, though. The only good thing about the wah-wah is the sandwiches, and they weren't even getting the sandwiches. They were just stealing.
Vic00:07:20If I were sacking the wah-wah, I would have jumped over the counter and told the guy, get me the Capicol now. That's what I want. Give me the Gabagool. And then what? Run away.
JVL00:07:30I need the mortadel. So I watched this with my family, obviously. The only regret I have is that had I been single, I would have been there in Philadelphia, and I would have been part of it all, and it would have been amazing. Oh, it would have been amazing.
Vic00:07:46What year was the last Super Bowl for Philadelphia?
JVL00:07:49Oh, never.
Vic00:07:50You know, I always thought they won in 82.
JVL00:07:52No. No, they lost to the Raiders. The Raiders. They lost to the Raiders.
Vic00:07:56That's right. I was in second grade. And it was a big deal. Because Philly was close enough to...
Sonny00:08:01That's the year I was born.
Vic00:08:03Philly was close enough to, you know, even the shore that there were some Philly fans. The rest of them were Giants or Jets, and so that was perhaps Generals. It was 82. But I remember then, for some reason in my mind, I had forgotten that they had lost that. So anyway, this is big. Okay. A question. Question. At what point did you, in your mind, say, we're going to win this? When? Honest. Be honest with us now. At what point? About three seconds after the clock ticked zero. After.
JVL00:08:37Like, you could have, like, this is, like, there's, wait, they're calling it back. Wait, there's something happened. Like the Eagles players themselves. If you watch the end of that game, most of the time, at the close of the Super Bowl, the winning team, like, goes crazy. They're coming over, they're high-fiving. This thing happened, we hit zeros, and the Eagles were, do we get a line back up again? What, what? I saw that. I noticed that. That was weird. Nobody, everybody I know... Who is Philly, we, you know, texting each other last night and talking, all of us, this is crazy. We can't believe that this has happened, because it never goes like this for us. We're the, we're on the other side of this. Right. We don't exit, we don't get the fumble sack with two minutes to go. We don't get the game-winning late drive. We don't bat down the Hail Mary pass. We're always on the other side of this thing. And it was... Not anymore. It's crazy. I mean, I have a bunch of thoughts, if you guys would like... Yeah, sure.
Vic00:09:29...to talk about the game qua game. Yeah, yeah. Game qua game, I have some questions, but go ahead. Just give us your thoughts now, we... So, everybody fixates on the end of the first half, touchdown pass to Nick Foles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is pretty great. Yeah, it's great.
JVL00:09:45But misses, to my mind, what is maybe the greatest play of the game. You want to guess? Best play of the game?
Vic00:09:55I thought that was the best play of the game.
JVL00:09:56Go ahead. First quarter. Eagles leading 9-3, the Pats are driving, they are on the 11, third and two. First down will give them a first and goal, and they will take the lead. Brady drops back, throws a screen pass out to Brandon Cooks, who then tries to jump over Rodney McCloud. Rodney McCloud jumps up, catches his crotch across his face, and then power bombs him. Like Stone Cold Steve Austin style. Stop. Forcing the Patriots to kick a field goal. That was maybe the best tackle I've ever seen in the Super Bowl. It was an unbelievable amount of effort, and it defied the laws of physics. I'm Sonny. I'm sorry. Sonny. Stone Cold Steve Austin doing a power bomb? Well, he called it the stunner, right? I mean, isn't it? But it's the same.
Sonny00:10:46Yeah, but that's like with his head on the...
JVL00:10:48Oh, no. So who did the power bomb? Who did the power bomb? Is that Cain?
Sonny00:10:53Cain? No, it's one of the guys who left for the... Oh, Scott. Kevin Nash. Oh, Kevin. Yes. Yes.
JVL00:10:58That is the... Kevin Nash power bomb. I'm sorry. Instant correction. Instant correction. Yes. So it was a Kevin Nash-style power bomb. If you go to the NFL site, they have a 360 view of that. I've watched it probably 100 times already. It's unbelievable. God, it's so great. But here's a serious question.
Sonny00:11:17A serious question.
JVL00:11:18So I watched the game with my family, including my brother-in-law, who was born in Worcester. Oh. And is a genuine... Pat's fan. Genuine Pat's fan. Yeah. And the two of us sat there, each convinced that our team was going to lose throughout the entirety of the game.
Vic00:11:38Only because you wanted to... Do you think the other side, and does he think the other side was saying it just because, not to drink, but they actually secretly knew they were going to win?
JVL00:11:47No, just morose, fatalistic. And so it was the most tension-fraught and joyless Super Bowl watch ever, because neither side had any confidence in their ability to win. Neither side had any confidence in their ability to triumph. Both of us were convinced that calamity was coming. It was hysterical in that way.
Vic00:12:04Brady seemed off, and Gronkowski seemed off. I mean, he was recovering from what? Brady threw for 500 yards. Yeah, he did.
Sonny00:12:11Brady didn't seem a little bit off in that first half. Just, he was throwing behind people. He threw a lot, there's no question, absolutely. But he missed like eight passes the whole
JVL00:12:20game.
Sonny00:12:20And he missed almost all of them in the first half, I think. I mean, that first half was not a very good half for him. I don't know. For him.
JVL00:12:29For him. For him. It was still an unbelievable, it was an unbelievable game for him. I mean, Brady played great.
Vic00:12:36Did you think he was going, so you thought with that amount of time left, he was just going to march down? Yes. Even this, how about this? Terrible play calling.
JVL00:12:43Terrible play calling in the final minute.
Vic00:12:45March down, touchdown, and then a two-point conversion to tie. 100%. You thought, really? No.
JVL00:12:50I assumed, as I said to my son, I said, hear me, I am from the future. This is what's going to happen. It was tremendous.
Vic00:13:00How about when they, so they took the lead, right? Wasn't it, what was the, when they took the lead by point, and Philly had to then get all the way to the aside, and then there was, yet again, were there, I think there were two controversial calls. Two controversial calls, which- Supposedly controversial, right.
JVL00:13:14Are only controversial if you are steeped in the NFL rule book. Running versus pass receiving. If you are just a person who watches football and watch those, it is obvious. You know, like, so he has three steps, and the ball breaks the plane by every rational definition.
Sonny00:13:29Of a football move.
JVL00:13:32Those things are touchdowns.
Sonny00:13:33He was going to the ground. I guess, but these are- You have to complete the catch through going to the ground.
JVL00:13:39But these are, like, the crazy things which have happened to the NFL rule book over the last five or six years, and they have happened because of instant replay. As you get ultra high definition and super slow-mo instant replay, the NFL is still trying to grapple with what that means to the rule book, and instead of simply waving their hands, which is what they should be doing, they're just waving their hands, which is what they should do, and say, the officials on the field have to call it, the NFL has this insane idea that they can quantify in words every possible eventuality, and if they keep up this madness five years from now, the NFL rule book will be a thousand pages long.
Sonny00:14:14I will say that I do think the play, it's the second controversial call where he went to the ground and the ball popped up. That was a catch. That was a catch, and as soon as he crossed the goal line, it's touchdown.
JVL00:14:27So he has control of the ball. And he takes three steps. Yeah.
Sonny00:14:31Yeah, which makes him, before the ball breaks the, makes him into a runner. But I do think the one that they looked at before that, earlier in the game, was not a touchdown. Where he's messing with the ball, and his second step lands on the edge of the goal line.
JVL00:14:50So that's the third step, but the question is, between steps one and two. But I'm saying, I don't think he had control of the ball. Does he have control of the first? So I was expecting them to rule that. Because I assumed they would have one more angle to definitively show that he didn't have it. But on our feed, we did not get an angle that I think definitively showed that it does. It certainly suggested, but the alternate explanation is, he's changing hands. Like, he has control. But yeah, I thought that was coming back. As we watched it.
Sonny00:15:19I thought it should come back.
JVL00:15:20I said that's coming back.
Sonny00:15:23You know, this is just typical of the refs. Always out to get the Patriots. Always out to, two very questionable calls. Go Philadelphia's way. Everybody is always out to get the Patriots.
Vic00:15:34Has a torch been passed, JVL? I mean, people are saying, this is really, he's 40. You know, there's going to be changeover on the Pats coaching staff, right? Josh McDaniels heading over to Indianapolis.
JVL00:15:45Unless Belichick is going to retire, in which case McDaniels wants to stay and become the heir apparent.
Vic00:15:53With a new quarterback? Or what do you think? What does Brady do? With Nick Foles as quarterback.
Sonny00:15:59So Nick Foles is under contract for one more year, right? I believe so.
Vic00:16:03So he has to stay there. And you're sure, because we talked about this a couple episodes ago, Carson Wentz, beginning
JVL00:16:08in August. They went out of their way in the postgame, from ownership to coach, to make clear that Wentz is the franchise starting quarterback. It mystified me. Let me read you some numbers. Can I read you some numbers? Yeah, please. Okay. Nick Foles goes 28 for 43 for 373 yards, three TDs. And one interception, which is really a freakish thing and probably shouldn't be hung on him. He has a 106 QB rating for the Super Bowl. He outduels the greatest quarterback of all time, finishes the postseason with a 115 quarterback rating. You tell me, if Carson Wentz had been the quarterback, how much better would he have been? Would his overall QB rating for the postseason have been a 116? Because if you're going to make the decision to go from this to door number two, you're better be real certain that what's behind door number two is better and not think, well, he had really 10 great games and he looks great and he can scramble. So, Sonny. I mean, Carson Wentz is like seven years younger.
Sonny00:17:13I believe six years younger. I would say that what we've seen...
JVL00:17:18Do we think that we're going to get 13 years out of one of these quarterbacks?
Sonny00:17:21I think that from what we've seen from Carson Wentz versus what we've seen from Nick Foles, I think that they're roughly equivalent or close enough to equivalent that the six or seven years makes a big difference.
JVL00:17:38So, you're making... My status quo bias here, and I have status quo bias in all things, is that if you're going to make the change here, you better be a thousand percent sure that you're making the right call. Because if you trade Nick Foles...
Sonny00:17:53Carson Wentz was a frontrunner for the MVP before he got hurt.
JVL00:17:57Yeah. Now, maybe... For 10 games. Maybe the team is just... Before the rest of the league had time to figure him out.
Sonny00:18:02Maybe the team is... Did we die?
?00:18:05Why did it die?
Vic00:18:06Well, we're still on the micro, so let's keep on talking. Yeah, whatever. Keep going. Go ahead.
Sonny00:18:12Whatever. I don't care. I don't actually care enough about the Philadelphia quarterback situation to get worked up about this. JVL, what you're... But it seems insane to me that you would just be like, well, Nick Foles had four good games, so we better bring him on full time.
Vic00:18:25What you're making the case for is Dennis Quaid over Willie Beeman. Is that what you're saying?
JVL00:18:29No, except that he's not 40. He's not at the end of his row. I mean, what I'm making the case for is the bird in the hand versus the two in the bush. And that if... I mean, let's pretend that the problem that other defenses had with Wentz this year is that they just hadn't had enough film on him to scheme him and figure him out. This happens. This happens all the time. You get flash-in-the-pan quarterbacks who have one or two great seasons. But he had a whole year before this. And he was terrible.
Sonny00:18:56He wasn't terrible. He had a good first half. Then the league caught up. And he had a great first half this year until he went down with an injury.
JVL00:19:03I am saying that if you trade Foles, and then three years from now Carson Wentz is not a top three quarterback in the league, then you have made a terrible franchise-wrecking mistake.
Sonny00:19:15Only if Foles is a top three quarterback. I mean, look, here's what you do. You trade Foles for, like, two or three picks. You're not going to get two or three picks for him. I bet you can get at least a second-round pick for Foles. I doubt it. Probably, like, a second and maybe, like, a seventh.
JVL00:19:31I doubt it. People don't give up picks that easily anymore. People treat picks as the treasure that they are. Look, I'm not saying—I am glad that I am not in the GM chair to make the decision. I think it's a very difficult decision. What bothers me is the people who say it's no difficulty at all. The people who say, oh, it's fine. I mean, you just keep playing.
Sonny00:19:51But you have to say this if you're in charge of the franchise, because you don't want the dreaded quarterback contract. We've argued about this before. No, but it's not just the people in the franchise. They have to say this. Because it's like, oh, of course you keep Wentz.
JVL00:20:02Of course you keep Wentz.
Sonny00:20:02It's a total politburo. They need to maintain the party line in order to keep the risk of contamination from creeping in.
JVL00:20:14I understand that. What I don't understand is the outside-of-the-organization assumption that it is easy to tell that one is the better.
Sonny00:20:23Because we've seen Nick Foles' career. We've seen Nick Foles' career. Which has been great.
JVL00:20:28Okay.
Vic00:20:29Do you have any... We're at... 45 minutes.
Guest00:20:33About 20 minutes.
Vic00:20:35We're about 20 minutes.
JVL00:20:36So I thought Sonny's head would have exploded if he'd seen us setting off fireworks last night after the game.
Sonny00:20:42I would have called the goddamn cops. That's what I would have done.
JVL00:20:45After we took out the bottle of champagne and shook it and shook it and shook it and popped off.
Sonny00:20:50My favorite thing about...
JVL00:20:51Sprayed it all over the front yard. My favorite thing about this is... With my children who are awake at 11 o'clock at night.
Vic00:20:55Did you drink any champagne? No, we sprayed it.
Sonny00:20:58Remember...
Vic00:20:59I hope it wasn't real champagne and sparkling wine. I had already had three of these. Oh my gosh. Oh yeah, you were going to tell us about it. Oh, three. I had three Schuffer Huffers last night. That comes to like 12 ounces? You had 12 ounces of 4%?
Sonny00:21:10I was wrecked. 2.5%.
JVL00:21:122.5% beer? I was wrecked.
Vic00:21:13Oh my gosh.
JVL00:21:14I've never had three Schuffer Huffers in a sitting before. Is that even legal? No, it's not. In America? No, it's not. In Germany, I'm sure it is. In Germany, maybe.
Vic00:21:22For you, it's not legal. All right. Yes. Okay.
Sonny00:21:29I was actually really excited to see you putting photos of yourself with your children onto social media, celebrating the event. I didn't do that.
JVL00:21:35Which is a thing- I didn't do that.
Sonny00:21:37Which is a thing that you have many times to cry about.
JVL00:21:40I didn't do that. My wife did. Really? One and the same? It's one and the same. I'm sure it's fine.
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