Welcome back to Hitch Route! As you may have noticed, Hitch Route took last week off for the holidays, so we hope y'all had a restful time. But now you get to hear our lovely/annoying voices once again! Not all of our voices, though; Anish was caught up with family obligations, so we have Alex as always but also Rob as a guest once again. Nevertheless, we persisted. The regular season is almost over, and we had a very interesting week of football to analyze and also another one that was arguably less interesting to predict. And perhaps it's because it's the holidays and we wanted to include some extra content - or more likely just because we're rusty - this episode will be a doozy. We hope you enjoy it, though, as we get back into peak performance before heading into the playoffs.
Last but not least, we just wanted to write a formal dedication to the legendary John Madden. While he is not a founding father of the game like George "Papa Bear" Halas (yes, Alex is writing this as always), Madden helped directly shape much of how football culture currently exists today - obviously most notably in the form of his eponymous video games. A man who was full of life even until his death, he will be missed.
