Colin Cowherd Podcast - Darnold Is Super Bowl Bound, Sean Payton’s Huge Mistake, NFC Is The Superior Conference, Mike McCarthy Lands Steelers Job
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
iHeartPodcasts and The Volume
4.1 • 10.3K Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2026
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Colin is joined by John Middlekauff, host of “3 and Out” to break down the NFL conference championship games.
They start with the Seahawks beating the Rams in a heavyweight fight style shootout and Colin highlights the special teams lapses by the Rams as the reasons Seattle won the game (2:00). They give huge credit to Sam Darnold for two outstanding back-to-back seasons resulting in a Super Bowl appearance and being the winningest quarterback in the league since he took over for the Vikings (8:45).
Colin argues that the NFC was the superior conference all year and points to the Rams roster that lost as evidence (28:45).
They move to the Patriots beating the Broncos 10-7 in a blizzard and Colin argues the game was useless once the weather started (32:45). They agree that Sean Payton made a huge mistake not kicking a chip shot field goal in the first half to go up 10-0. Colin argues that if Bo Nix plays, Denver wins the game (41:00).
Finally, they discuss the hire of Mike McCarthy as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers (47:00).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:05.4 | The volume. |
| 0:08.4 | Christian Gonzalez is the Louisiana hot sauce player of the week. |
| 0:12.0 | He had a sack and a pick in the Patriots 10 to 7. |
| 0:15.1 | Ugly went over the Broncos. |
| 0:16.7 | Christian's interception iced the game for New England, the original. |
| 0:19.7 | Louisiana hot sauce is the perfect balance of peppers and vinegar and salt. I love it. On your wings, your nachos, your burgers, hit any tailgate food with a bold, handcrafted flavor of the original Louisiana hot sauce. That's Louisiana hot. Buy you some. |
| 0:40.1 | All right, welcome in Sunday night. |
| 0:44.6 | Two games, one, a top fiver of all time, I think I've seen in the NFL. |
| 0:48.2 | And there are just so many storylines. |
| 0:52.6 | Sam Darnold Doubters, not much left. |
| 0:54.2 | He was sensational. |
| 0:56.1 | So was Matt Stafford. |
| 0:58.5 | Seattle beats the Rams, 31-27. |
| 1:06.1 | Listen, all year long for the Rams, special teams, they had the fumble. |
| 1:09.4 | Their corners were a problem. |
| 1:14.7 | Again, they got down into the red zone, fourth and four couldn't convert. |
| 1:20.3 | And when you talk about a game of this magnitude, John, and we were watching a heavyweight fight. |
| 1:22.7 | I mean, I grew up with Ollie and Frasier. |
| 1:30.2 | You know, some grew up with Diaz and Connor McGregor. Like, whatever you grew up with, this thing was just like bombs away. But there's just these moments, that fourth and four. I thought that, I thought |
| 1:36.6 | the Matt Stafford drive where they didn't get anything, where he, one time he ran for a first down, |
... |
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