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unsaid an institution for sports talk and information this is the sports reporters here's

mike lupica mitch alb and bob ryan i'm bob ryan of the boston globe and ESPN i'm mitch alb of the

detroit free press i am mike lupeka m lbcom, in the New York Daily News, and a belated Merry Christmas, and

happy new year to everybody.

This is the Monday edition of the Sports Reporters podcast, and as Mitch likes to point out,

we are quite happy to have a Monday morning edition of the sports reporters because we get to talk about a lot of football.

And guys, I'll start with this because of the way the chiefs have looked, the way the Bucks now look, and the way the Packers look.

I think at the start of this season, if somebody said, well, give me three teams that you think are definitely going to be in play for the Super Bowl, we would have said chiefs, bucks, Packers. Except, you know, they all have taken sort of a different route, but

here we sit in the last week of December. And the chiefs, let's start with the Chiefs, because

the Chiefs have now won, what is it, eight in a row. Eight in a row. And look very much like the team that has been to the last two Super Bowls.

And their defense, to me, looks as good as it has in any of this time of the Chiefs.

And there they were putting it on the Steelers yesterday.

Well, what you said at the end there is the easiest part, putting it on the Steelers.

The Steelers are the cockroach that won't die.

And what's amazing to me is that they're still not technically out of the playoffs,

which is like when already.

But they're a team that's waiting to be had. On the other hand, they were playing

the Chiefs without Travis Kelsey, who is, you know, an outlet for Patrick Mahomes on play after

play. And so he definitely, his absence affects their offense. Tyreek Hill play, but he didn't

practice all week. And it didn't make a difference.

Mahomes can look like Mahomes.

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