Alina Habba Has MAGA Melting From Her Poolside Cabana, Tony Romo Drinking Game & The NFL Is Rigged, Isn't it?

We've made it. The FINAL week of January. Thank the Lord. What a month. Feels like it's lasted a YEAR. But here we are. Five more days to go, and then we're in February. 

Now, to be fair, that month ain't much better. But at least it's progress. We've got the Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, and the start of spring training. For those who care, we also have the Olympics. I've never been an OIympics guy, but I do love America, so I'll keep up with it. 

Bottom line? The arrow is pointed up today. Let's treat it as such. 

Welcome to a Monday Nightcaps – the one where Alina Habba puts out fires from her poolside cabana as the rest of the country digs out of the snow. 

What else? I've got the best of the rest from a LOADED weekend of #content, the NFL leaked the Super Bowl script months ago, the NBA is just insufferable, SNL isn't much better, and we're now free from Tony Romo for the next eight months. 

Exhale, everyone. We made it!

Grab you whatever you need to get you through this first football-less Monday in months, and settle in for a bitter (except in Florida) beginning-of-the-week 'Cap!

Where do we stand on crowd noise?

Let's spin the wheel today and start with … crowd noise? Crowd NOISE! 

So, I actually noticed this last night while watching the NFC championship. I don't know if it was a CBS problem, a snow problem, or just a Seattle problem, but the difference in crowd noise between the two games yesterday was absurd. 

I felt like I was watching a golf tournament during the AFC championship. It was weird. Granted, there wasn't a ton to cheer about after the Broncos scored 10 minutes into the game, but still. And I never know what's going on behind the scenes with these things. 

I know networks will sometimes lower the crowd volume on the telecasts so we can hear the insufferable announcers. Perhaps CBS has different standards than FOX? Would the snow subdue the crowd noise a bit, naturally? Maybe. Sounds like a question for woke Bill Nye if he has time between fearmongering on CNN. 

Regardless, it was noticeable yesterday. One game felt like a preseason game. The other felt like a trip to the Super Bowl was on the line. 

The takes, naturally, were SCORCHING:

What a weekend of #content!

Just an all-time take here from Matt. I honestly don't know if it's shtick or not, but I laughed out loud at the "hearing loss issues" part. Amazing stuff. Try walking through the pits while the track is hot at Daytona. You wanna talk about hearing loss, that's the closest you'll come during a sporting event. 

(Although NASCAR has made the cars greener, quieter, and more progressive now, so perhaps it's no longer applicable)

Anyway, what in the hell would the "fix" be here? I'd love to know what Matt proposes. Just have staff members stand in front of each section holding "Quiet Please" signs like they do at golf tournaments? Back during the early, insufferable days of COVID, I once attended a Stetson baseball game where staff members walked around holding "masks on" signs. 

For those wondering how that went … in FLORIDA … we all started mocking it so much that we got kicked out. The signs were gone for the next game. 

Anyway, the crowd noise wasn't loud enough yesterday afternoon to drown out Jim and Tony telling us about the "conditions" for the 150th time. 

Lead us off, fellas!

Alina, SNL & it's rigged, isn't it?

Great work, everyone. We ended January strong, which is hard to do given it's a miserable month. A couple thoughts …

1. The Pats run to the Super Bowl this year has been breathtaking in terms of luck. Truly amazing stuff. And now they get SAM DARNOLD instead of Matt Stafford? Amazing. 

2. The Broncos were outplaying them all day until the snow came, and then it was curtains. That being said, the ‘put roofs on stadiums’ crowd is exhausting. Not as exhausting as the ‘get rid of the crowd noise’ crowd, but close. 

3. That being said, Part II: The fact the NFL won't play a Super Bowl in a cold weather city should probably tell you something about what's coming for all 32 teams. 

4. The NBA canceling games because of the ICE shooting was among the sillier things I've seen out of that league, and that list is long. Did they cancel games for Iryna Zarutska? Yes, I know they were out of season, but you get my point. 

5. Sean Payton and Sean McVay do know that field goals win games, too, right? Why do coaches hate field goals all of a sudden? 

OK, let's rapid-fire this Monday class into a big(ish) Monday night. First up? We didn't get Joe and Troy over the weekend (sad), but we did get … whatever the hell THIS was from SNL:

I've seen a ton of bad SNL skits over the years. A ton. Most of them are awful at this point. But this one? My God. It may be the worst I have ever seen. I couldn't make it to the end. Couldn't do it. It was THAT bad. 

The impersonations were terrible. The jokes were worse. They spent the last three minutes just recycling the same joke over and over again, and it wasn't that funny the first time! 

Why not do a Romo/Nantz skit? Nobody is making fun of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. In fact, they're probably the most well-liked announcing team in the NFL at this point. 

The whole thing was impressively bad. Kudos, SNL. Well done. 

Next? Speaking of predictable things …

Not a great look for the ‘The NFL isn’t rigged!' crowd. Look at the two front QBs! Sam Darnold and Drake Maye! This was five months ago. Both of those teams were supposed to STINK. And someone in the graphics department just happened to throw them up front? 

NFL PR guy – thoughts?

Well, that settles it then! Just another coincidence, I reckon. Nothing to see here, folks. 

OK, that's it for today. Good start to the week. Alina Habba takes us into the rest of it from her poolside cabana. 

See you Wednesday. 

OutKick Nightcaps is a daily column set to run Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. (roughly, we’re not robots).

Does the NFL have a crowd noise problem? Email me at Zach.Dean@OutKick.com.