Frank Caliendo as Morgan Freeman Gives Us the Bucs-Saints Preview We Need: TRAINA THOUGHTS

Tom Brady's viral photo gets turned into an outstanding promo for Bucs-Saints NFC divisional round playoff game.

1We told you Tuesday that Tom Brady earned a big W (350,000 likes as of this writing) on Twitter thanks to this great photo.

Well, Brady’s teammate Rob Gronkowski got in on the bit.

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Then impressionist Frank Caliendo saw Gronk’s tweet and channeled his inner Morgan Freeman to fulfill the tight end’s request. The result was this outstanding promo (“The two oldest human beings on planet earth will battle for the opportunity to play for the NFC championship”) for Sunday’s Bucs-Saints playoff game.

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I’m not sure it’s possible to do a better impression than that.

2. I told you Tuesday that I was totally wrong with my prediction about the ratings for the NFL's super wild-card weekend. Therefore, I need to take this victory lap today. 

I tweeted this Sunday night after the Browns beat the Steelers.

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Apparently, I was far from the only one out of the loop on the national title game. Monday's Ohio State–Alabama contest was the least-watched college football title game of the CFP or BCS eras.

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3. Bill Walton shared some words about war and sex last night.

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4. A young wrestling fan recently had a [Stone Cold] Steve Austin–themed birthday party. Four-year-old Mason nailed every aspect of the Rattlesnake, minus the beer drinking and double bird, thank goodness.

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Thanks to the power of the internet, Stone Cold ended up seeing the video, which he retweeted. And Tuesday, Austin surprised Mason during an appearance on Access Hollywood. Very cool.

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5. A new SI Media Podcast with Troy Aikman will drop early Thursday morning. If you missed last week's episode with Andrew Marchand of the New York Post and Armen Keteyian, who is an executive producer on HBO's two-part docuseries, Tiger, check that out now.

You should also make sure you listen to the mega, two-part end-of-year roundtable podcast I did with Good Morning Football's Peter Schrager and Andrew Perloff of The Dan Patrick Show. There will be a very cool giveaway in Traina Thoughts next week, and you will need information from this podcast to win the prizes.

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher and Google Play.

6. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Happy 60th birthday to the great Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Sure, her work on Seinfeld and Veep is legendary, but never forget she had the best moment on David Letterman's final show during the Top 10 List.

7. SPORTS VIDEO OF THE DAY: With the Browns and Chiefs facing off on Sunday, let's take a trip down memory lane to when these teams played against each other in 1988.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Stitcher. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.


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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.