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The Pat McAfee Show

PMS 2.0 1488 - NFL Divisional Playoffs Preview/Picks, Miami Head Coach Mario Cristobal, University of Miami President/CEO Joseph Echevarria, Jeff Passan, & AJ Hawk

The Pat McAfee Show

ESPN

Sports, Football

4.919.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2026

⏱️ 139 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On today's show, Pat, AJ Hawk and the boys preview the entire Divisional Round slate and make their picks against the spread, while also discussing everything that is happening around the NFL and the Big College Football game on Monday. Joining the show to preview the National Championship game and Miami’s incredible run to the national title game is the Head Coach of their football team, Mario Cristobal. Next, President and CEO of the University of Miami, Joseph Echevarria joins the show to chat about Miami’s resurgence, what college football needs to do going forward, and much more. Later, MLB Insider, Jeff Passan joins the show to chat about Kyle Tucker signing a massive 4 year deal with the Dodgers, the latest on Tarik Skubal, and the upcoming labor talks for MLB. Make sure to subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow or watch on ESPN (12-2 EDT), ESPN’s Youtube (12-3 EDT), or ESPN+. We appreciate the hell out of all of you, we’ll see you on Overreaction Monday, live from Hard Rock Stadium in Miami at the site of the National Championship game. Cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to our Humbley Bo, the Thunderdome, on this division round

0:06.6

Eve, feel good Friday, January 16, 2026. This program begins now. Football is the greatest,

0:15.4

and we got four massive divisional round, playoff games for the NFL, two on Saturday, two on Sunday, and then Monday, obviously the big college game that we'll be alive from, both on our overreaction Monday program from the stadium at Hard Rock down there and on the sideline as the big game decides who's this year's title holder. Now, divisional round tomorrow kicks off at 4.30

0:39.7

Eastern Time on CBS as the Buffalo Beals in the reigning MVP travel out to Sean Peyton

0:46.3

Bow Nicks into Denver Broncos who have a loaded defense looking for their first win into

0:51.6

playoffs this season. Now, they were the number one overall seed and the AFC. Does it still look that way after one round of wild card football? We shall see San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks. The battle for the number one overall seed in the NFC just a few weeks ago. And NFC West rivalry continues in divisional round in front of the 12s, who will put on a show for football that the entire world will say, wow, those are good fans. Then on Sunday, we wake up. Have a little bit of a morning. Yeah. Have yourself a morning. Do what you've got to do. Hang out with the fam, talk to the fam, do a little breakfast, maybe some brunch. Maybe some of mouses get this entire thing kicked off. You know, because the big college games happening tomorrow, today's divisional round. We're almost in the middle of a necessary three-day holiday weekend. You should enjoy yourself, and then boom, three o'clock. The best defense may be in documented history. We'll travel up to Foxborough to take on the New England Patriots, who are favored by three. and Mike Vrabble's first year as head coach up there and Drake May's second year as an NFL quarterback. Will he win the MVP? Will he have a massive moment? Or will the demoralizing defense of the Houston Texans who bring the boo birds with them often ruin everything that Foxborough could potentially showcase? And then at 6.30 on Sunday, we wrap up

2:02.5

the divisional round in Chicago. The Monsters of the Midway will host the Los Angeles Rams. And I'll

2:09.2

tell you what, Rams favored by three and a half on the road. It's going to be down near zero.

2:14.0

They're saying that weather's going to be crazy. And if you start looking at the stats of these cold weather games you know matthew staffer's in the nfc north for a long time on the detroit lines you'd assume he'd have a lot more experience maybe in colder weather than keelb who comes from uh ohlahoma then he was at u sc he's just in his second year in chicago there has to be more experience in a cold by Matt Stafford to Caleb Williams.

2:35.0

That was my initial thought.

3:24.3

Ask Hemba to look into it. Nope, both of them, two and two. Caleb's actually played in multiple games that are colder than any game Matthew Stafford has ever played. And in Matthew Stafford's coldest games were never in Chicago. They were at Green Bay and Philly whenever he was on the Detroit Lions. So now we got a chance to say, Caleb actually may be more prepared for the weather than Matthew Stafford, who spent more than a decade in the NFC North, which is a crazy talk. Now, will Caleb Williams be able to play all four quarters like he's played a lot of fourth quarters? We shall see. Will the Rams defense take advantage? And will this weather really impact anything on either side? We'll certainly chat about it the entire rest of today's show as we lead into the greatest weekend of ball that we have had in some time. The Toxitate was here at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt. Come, man, I thought we had a playoff fit that we were wearing before the playoffs all the time. Didn't he say that last week, Ty? Yeah, yeah, he did.

3:40.8

It involved a Nike Tech, over the head thing. Yep. Lock in. Glasses. Yep, and then a water bottle. And a water bottle. I thought that was what we were wearing going into every playoff weekend. They got a big win last week. Yeah. And now he's changing it up. Did we expect this time? Not exactly, but you know what?

3:43.3

I don't really hate what he's wearing right now either.

4:17.1

I was going into the playoffs, gentlemen. Okay, we're here. We're here. Okay. Now we are in game mode going forward. We don't have to, we don't have to do any of the, hey, let's get our warm-ups on, let's do all that. We've been warmed up. You got the helmet on. Yeah, yeah. Now it's just all game. Since Sunday, I've basically had this. When I look into the mirror, you guys, you know, I see this constantly. I might have had different outfits on all week. This has been what I've been wearing mentally since Sunday when we beat the absolute shite out of the Chargers. Now, I mean, Ched, you said it. Greatest defense possibly ever with the Houston, Texas coming to town.

4:17.6

But we'll see.

4:16.8

Well, we'll see. I think a lot of people in Foxborough feel good. I think that home field advantage, we're talking about the cold being the advantage in Chicago. In New England, it's the cold and the fans. You know, it's kind of a tooth. Oh, you don't think the Chicago fans are going to be as as uh as uh powerful as the Foxborough people because I'll tell you Patriots fans are good at

4:37.2

what they do they have a lot of experience they are a shit talking community okay the entire area

4:42.2

revolution region and they also have had a lot to brag about for a long time yeah so they've

4:47.0

thought of creative

4:47.7

ways to say things over and over so they got in their holster a multitude of things that they can

4:52.6

bury you at you are the professional athlete okay i'm getting paid to be here sure the person that is

4:57.7

talking right now paying to be here oh yeah in theory you're a nerd dude yeah you're paying to be

...

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