The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - NFL Wild Card Sunday Recap: 49ers survive Cowboys, Chiefs & Bucs move on & Steelers, Cowboys & Eagles postmortem

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

After another day of crazy Wild Card action, Robert Mays and Nate Tice return to react to the biggest moments and game-swinging plays. How should 49ers fans feel about their Super Bowl chances after how they looked against the Cowboys? How should Cowboys fans feel going forward? Will the Bucs and Tom Brady make another run at a title? Can the Chiefs continue their impressive offensive output against the Bills? All that and more instant analysis following the Sunday games on another postgame Athletic Football Show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today is my good friend Nate Tyson. Nate, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing well. Today reminded you that it's number two versus number seven seeds. That seven seeds exists in our playoffs now,

that it's very much in the NBA when they have those one versus eight matchups, and you're like, we kind of know how this is going to go. That's what these games kind of really felt like. It reminds you that seven seeds are in the playoffs. It was a rough day in a lot of ways, right? We had two blowouts that really didn't feel close from at some point in the second quarter. I will say, Chief Steelers game was worrying me for a second. Everything we said on Friday show about you guys picking the Steelers and about them trying to cover 12 and a half.

I was like, oh, man, is this really going to be a game that we have to watch? And then Patrick Mahomes took care of it for us. It was a win-win. It was a win-win. The no-fly zone ended in a nuclear way, I should say. And then also it was if some screwiness happened like at the beginning, it really felt like the game started after the fumble return from T.J. Watt.

And then it was like, okay. They're like, oh, that's right. Like pregame's over. We got to start trying. So that's really what it felt like that like just really kind of slapped them in the face a little bit. We'll get to that game. We'll get to the Eagles Bucks game. But I want to start with the game of the day, the game that actually produced a lot of

things that we can talk about here. Where do you want to start with the Cowboys? Niners game. I feel like we have to start with some of the decisions that happen in the second half for the Cowboys. I mean, right? I mean, that's really the only place we can get going with this. What is the most bewildering thing in your mind that the Cowboys did in the second half of that game? The whole second half, the whole really the punt sequence choosing not to punt in a two score game in the like the beginning of the fourth quarter, I believe, or at the very least end of the third quarter. And then they decide to punt again, but it was a fake punt. And then it.

It was a, let's keep the punt team out there to like, I don't know, like make the defense confused, even though their safe defense was out there because it was like at midfield. It was just an absolutely bizarre like sequence and drive by Mike McCarthy. I actually want to reprimand you because, okay, this is our second year doing this show. I got super high on the Cowboys this off season. You should the entire time when every time I got high on DAC and this team, you should have got their head coach is Mike McCarthy. I'm sorry.

I can't because I did the same thing. I'm just as guilty. as you are because, and we'll get to this. And I think this is a larger discussion about the state of the Cowboys and where things sit right now. Their roster is really good. You look at it, player for player. And crazy enough, their roster right now looks better than it did on August 1st. Yep. Because of the gains we've seen from some of their young players, because of what Micah Parsons turned into. So I feel like the excitement about the players is justified. Yes. The excitement about who's in charge of this might not be justified.

There's a lot to chew on there. Let's talk about the fake point. Okay. Great call. Yeah. Really like it. Smart move keeps you in the game. Just vintage bones fossil type of decision in that moment, right?

And then they just take it two steps too far. In that moment, send the offense back out there. Momentum, whatever you may think of it. A good thing just happened. You potentially have a defense on a run. take advantage of that. Instead, the most galaxy brand shit I can remember in a football game. I mean, that's one of those things where the special teams coordinator thinks it up in one moment.

I don't know what the ultimate motivation is. What do you think the end point of that is? Is it to get them to call time out? Yeah, it's to burn a time out. So that is the best case scenario is that when you're down two scores in the fourth quarter, they burn a time out. Yeah. And like even if they had to play and it was like,

because the 49ers defense didn't blink because their defense. They stood there. They stood there. They were like, okay, this is what you're doing. Because that's their defense. It wasn't some punt return unit that was out there. It was literally their defense. Well, they subbed a couple guys in while the punt team was still out there.

So they were just sitting there with most of their starting defense on the field. They went to base. Yeah. Staring at what the Cowboys were doing. And then they run them out there. And then, of course, the ref stands over the ball because you have to give them time to substitute. when they do that and then they get a delay of game.

Against a team, by the way, did you watch the rest of this game? What is the one thing you couldn't do against that Niners team today, even without Bosa? Get in third and longs. Get in second and long situations. If you did that, the series was essentially over multiple times in this game. So to waste 45-ish seconds in a two-score game in the fourth quarter and then to take a delay of game is just an it's an unforgivable. mistake. Like that's one of those things that that'll be in my mind whenever I think about

Mike McCarthy for the entirety of the offseason. We can go a lot of different directions with this too. The draw. Oh, I know. In the final minute of the game when you have no timeouts. How could you possibly allow that? And that's what it came out of a timeout because it's hard.

Best case scenario. What is the best case scenario? It's got one playoff. It's getting it with one second like panicking the spike because they just came out of the time out because of the first. Foreignaires burn to timeout. So they should have everybody on the same page. That's like ideal situation.

Hey guys, this is that gadget play we're running. That play we practiced like twice the entire year. And they looked like half the guys didn't know what the hell to do. Like, because if you see the dots, the receivers to the field were kind of just hanging out together. And then like one,

uh, I'm like, oh, Noah Brown is running a slant, but like kind of looking for it. But then Connor Williams, the left guard is starting to release with DAC. It was just bizarre.

And they did it from the gun. Like just all the, the all the so clock management stuff i think there's 13 seconds when they snap that ball 14 seconds is considered the time that you can have of when you can run a play but get about 10 to 15 yards and spike usually for a field goal at the end of the half something of that type of sort 14 seconds is kind of the parameter they try to do all that with 13 seconds and getting the extra five yards they should at least communicate like hey get 10 yards get down spike but it was just i mean but that's the lack of detail this entire team has had this entire season i kept betting that it's like

they're going to put it together. They're going to clean it up. They're going to clean up. They never did the entire year. That's the, that's just kind of like epitomizes this team. You talk about lack of detail. Look at all the penalties today.

Oh my God. All the penalties today. And some really backbreaking ones. Connor Williams had the hold on the 32 yard game to land. I mean, he had a rough day all around. I mean, that was one spot where the Niners consistently took advantage of them up front.

But everybody was involved. The defensive holding from Randy Gregory on that play near the end of the game, is just mind-boggling. He gave himself a rock bottom. Like he did. He like sold a rock bottom. It was unbelievable. Like no need.

He also got the call. He had the legal hands to the face on Alex Mac too, right? That erased one of a third down. I mean, Jimmy was trying to give him another one on that play. And then they get bailed out with an illegal hands to the face. They had two defensive holding calls. They had multiple offensive holding calls in this game.

I mean, just all over the place. Yeah. All the pre-snap stuff. That's the thing. hold happens. Like it just happens. Sometimes you get beat. You know, like, okay, legal Hanson, okay, shit happens. You're aggressive. I get that. But all the pre-snap stuff was like, I mean, even the first play on defense was. Multiple neutral. It was on infractions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was off sides. Like, take the hint. They're, they're calling it. They're like,

and the fact that they called, uh, defensive holding a couple times made me think they, every, every game, the head coach will get stuff from their, his assistance. Hey, what should we look for? I'm talking to the refs in the pregame. Guarantee you. They said, hey, these defensive guys hold and they'll let our guys get to the second level. Because they Which is ironic because considering the most famous defensive holder of my generation once played for the San Francisco 49ers. No one held as a defensive player like Justin Smith, the greatest defensive holder in the history of the NFL, I would contend. So obviously, I mean, the Cowboys melt down in a way that is going to lead to some real questions. And I don't want to get hyperbolic or take it too far, but we'll get there at the end and we kind of do our Cowboys post-mortem.

I do want to talk about the Niners, though, because they did go. this game out. You know, I mean, it was not their best game, but I do think that there are elements to the way that they played that were pretty impressive, especially on defense. So I don't want to say that this is a Cowboys failure here and a Cowboys kind of flame out and not give the Niners some credit for the way that they played today. NFC is loaded. We knew this.

It's, there's someone who's going to get a bad matchup week in the wild card. That was the Cowboys. The foreigners couldn't be a worse matchup for them, a team that takes advantage of your miscues, like as far as either defending the run, you know, turning the ball over. Also, it's just they also control the clock. And it's like if they get a good game script against you, you're kind of like you're playing, you know, it feels like four points behind every time that the four and Iters start the game just because they can melt that clock.

So just a terrible matchup for them. That's the thing is like you want to give credit to foreign iris, even though the Cowboys just make it so easy to talk about them, just make fun of them, just any type of angle. The Jimmy, you got the full Jimmy in the second half of that game. We got the full Jimmy. I joked about it. If I took my fiance,

who does not watch football, does not care about football, does not know anything about, she knows Jimmy Gropos very handsome. Like that is the extent of the knowledge she has about Jimmy Garoppolo as a person and that he's from Arlington Heights, Illinois, which is down the road, okay?

If she watched the second half of that game, she would need no more information about what the Jimmy Garoppolo era in San Francisco has been like, right? If you watch the whole game, you saw every single part of it. It ran the entire gamut. You had some moments where, I mean, just some beautiful designs. We'll get to a couple of them.

But they take advantage of digs in some real ways in this game. And just the run game, obviously working at times. And then you have the Jimmy moments where he misses I Yukon with a sort of a double move, but it's the counter. The interception is just, why? Why? Why, James? Like, why?

It's the type of plays. we were so worried about coming into this game because we thought if they didn't give them many, the Cowboys were going to have a hard time. And that's exactly what it came down to. If they don't throw that interception, then who knows? I mean, this could be a three-score game. I mean, that was really the only thing that kept Dallas in this game was that pick. So that's kind of how it felt. But again, their defense, it's really hard to overstate. Again, uniformity is the word I keep coming back to. The uniformity, the effort they play, with just the uniformity of effort they play with and just how i mean there's they're not doing

crazy stuff they sent some pressures in some moments today but for the most part they dominated we'll get to some of the numbers here while rushing four and playing zone like that's what they did and that's what they do and when their guys are healthy and obviously they lost both said they lost warner at the end for the most part their back seven is intact as well as it's been all season they play zone defense in a really really fun way they were running around for the Cowboys. The Cowboys just where we're going to get into the pressures, but they took advantage of the Cowboys not running outbreakers.

Just like they liked to run stoppy type of route. Static. We always talk about the Cowboys office static. Just think about the Williams pick. Yep. Oh, yeah, exactly. Curls, stop routes and Inbreakers, which is fine, but it's like just a lot of vertical and stop routes.

And so they knew that. And again, I'll get into the pressure. But like when they squeezed, it was like as soon as they felt these guys defending, Fred Warner almost got the pick when after Jimmy G's pick, when the Cowboys just marched down the field, Dak made a couple, I'm pissed off throws and just like put some booty into him. Like he just whipped them in there.

He did because he was piss. Fred Warner, though, read it because he was like, oh, this is what they love on second along and third down running this all-curl concept at the sticks of freaking hate this play. But all the teams run in the NFL. But they ran it. He read, Fred Warner reads Dax's eyes before he went out to the out one.

And then he gets the throw in. But it's like that it perfectly encapsulates what the 49ers were doing the entire day. They were squeezing those routes because they just knew they weren't running away from them. You don't see those overs that we see what the bills do like all the time. Hey, you just want to run that? Well, we're just going to have these guys crisscrossing over your face and running away from guys. But so, yeah, their coverages were great today. And then like you said, they just had a couple.

Even though when they didn't bring pressures, they ran the shit out of D-Line games, which you have to do. And that's a lot of heat coming at you. That first Moses sack was the epitome of it. But then also- Let's get into that because I want to talk about just how they affected DAC because to me in the first half of that game, they brought that K-Wan-William,

or I don't think Williams didn't come. Williams was on Cooper in the slot. And they brought a blitz on that touchdown to Cooper, where they were in man coverage, they burned them on a pressure. And I think in that moment, there's that thought of, we don't need to do this.

We don't need to give them easy ones. If we sit back in zone and we rush four, they can't do anything because we're going to swallow up everything underneath because of how much we can squeeze this stuff. So if you look at the numbers, DAC against four-man rushes today, 16 of 34, so 47% completions for 206 yards with a pick, or negative 0.3 EPA per dropback when the Niners rush four. God. When you can rush four and dominate the game like that, there's not much you can do. It's so hard to go against.

It's so impossibly hard to go against. And yeah, I mean, that's so funny. Without Bosa. Yeah, without Boso for what, over a half of the game. Yeah, but that first touchdown, that's exactly right. Because they, they, Cowboys got him exactly where they wanted. They motioned Zek out. And you can tell it's just man coverage because I think Greenlaw walked with him.

And they had five guys lined up with a lot of scrimmage. You can just see Dak kind of looking like, all right. Are you guys really going to do this? That's kind of how I felt. It gets pressed. All right. Like, it was just like clinic, like one, two, three throw touchdown like it was like inevitable so yeah that's exactly it was soon and then at the end

two the two minute they got to the couple of the blitzes and that's um the one i'll just get into it right now was just so great uh it was the one where zeke actually took out two guys yeah but on that so they got that one and they got to it later and then i think they ran it a third time they ran it three times in the game but they brought it was uh the cowboys tried to go on trips and they're going one by three so they had Dalton shows as the lone receiver three receivers to the other side and on that they're just trying to show everything is to the one receiver side. They're like, hey, we're bringing four over here. And that usually causes a lot of, you know, communication with offenses because they have

to move the protection to the left or away from the backside. And so on that, you can see that communicating, they got this. Safeties are rotated over. If I saw it, if I was looking at it, I think even Romo said it too. You look at it. You're like, oh, okay, they got this wotted up. Zeke's going to work the opposite side, work to the field. But the thing is, they pushed everybody from the boundary all the way to the field.

And again, this is taking advantage of the Cowboys, running Outbreakers because they run all these stoppy routes that sit there so Fred Warner can run from the opposite left guard all the way to the to the numbers on the opposite side of the field. And that's like, and then they really had a free runner, but Zeke did a barrel roll and took out two guys. So they got lucky there, but it was like, man, that was, that was some good, that was some good shit. Like that was like that would have gotten every quarterback in the league because just how they rotated, they waited, they waited, they waited until the snap of the ball. They didn't show any of it.

So they kind of used DAC and the Cowboys. offensive lines own power against them, which is like, you're playing with fire when you do that stuff in a good way. And that's kind of how I felt about what they were doing to Diggs, too. I mean, you had two kind of big plays, one that they hit where I, you had the cross and he took it vertical because Diggs was trying to undercut it. And then he had the one where he fakes the dig and breaks it out and Jimmy missed him. Let's talk about, you wanted to mention that the Bosa pressure, just as a way to kind of explain the types of games that they were using. Yeah. I think on the first drive that the Cowboys had.

had. It was a beautiful design. Lay out what you saw on that play. Yeah. And on it, at first I thought the 49ers like to run three defense alignment to one side of the center. We talked about that coming in because we thought they might try to waste Martin in that way by putting all those guys on the right side, on the left side of the offense. And this front, they kind of just went a normal overfront or a three technique, a one technique, which is, you know, over the guard, over the guard, and two guys on the outside. But what they did was they crossed the noses face on the center. And They also crossed where I think it was armstred. That's the thing.

When you have really good players, it was key. It was the second one, second guy through. Okay. When you, when you have really good players, these games look a lot better because they, the penetration is a lot, a lot, a lot more penetrating when you get the other guy looping around. So they got these guys across face. And so how the protection was going, they're working to the right, but the left

guard just has to hang out because he's not part of the slide. So center gets occupied, right guard gets occupied, right, right tackle. takes one of those guys and there comes Bosa looping all the way around the center. But what happens is really Zach Martin gets wasted. Like it's not, this is exactly exactly the opinion. He gets picked by two guys instead of one, which is the benefit of that. It gives Bosa a lot of a runway and you pick him twice instead of once. It's a really cool design.

It's very smart. You see Bosa's athleticism on that. When he turns that corner, that's a three cone drill right there. Just like making an L right there. Just straight, straight. And it's just like that's a lot of heat coming at you. But when you get guys like, you can see the level between Biotish, Martin, and Leo Collins. You can see the levels they're at.

You never want to see your offensive line slide. All the guys are at different levels. Like you want them to see them all in unison, almost shoulder to shoulder, give or take. So like you can see right there is like they got them exactly where they wanted them. Two other guys on defense when Bosa went out that I want to put in. Armstead's always good, right? Like Armstead is a unique player. Very good player.

I mean, it's the fact that he can play inside full time for the most part this year and still be dominant. is really says a lot about just how he's built and the things that he can do. But two guys that jumped out today, DJ Jones had a couple really nice rushes over Connor Williams. So he had a sack that ultimately led to the pick by K.1 Williams. So Jones just roast Williams on a little inside swim and gets a sack, goes to second and 28. They're in second and 28. Dax feeling a little bit urgency throws the pick to K.1 Williams. just quarters.

I mean, nothing funny there, nothing weird, just a really static play that he read really well and Dak tried to force a throw. And then the other guy who just, I was so impressed with over the course of the game was Charles Menahue, 92. I, you're like, this is. I like this one. It is the fact that these guys just keep coming out of the walls. Same deal.

He is unbelievable. So his pressure numbers, he was, you know, fifth round pick. by the Texans in that 2019. Okay. His pressure numbers with Houston early this year were solid, and three, four pressures a game. Niners trade a sixth round pick for him.

He didn't play more than 15 or 20 snaps for any game all season. Played 35 snaps today, had five pressures and like a legit sack against Tyron Smith. He's 6'5. He's all of 6'5-280. And that length and size, that sack he had against Tyron, he shocked him.

Like he stunned him with that initial punch and then did a little pull dip and went right around for a strip sack. And it's like, holy shit. And then a couple of plays later, he had another really nice pressure to put Tyron in Dax's lap. And the fact that you have DJ Jones, who's mostly a run defender the way he affects the game, and sixth round, guys you traded for six round picks in November, just coming out of the woodwork in the playoffs, like that speaks to, again, overall, the uniformity that

this defense has and just the effort, the way they play. I mean, it's really interesting to watch. Credit to Domingo Ryan's. I mean, it's, yeah, that unit just has that. They play fast. The first breakout we did of their defense about midseason, I would say it was after the Bengals game. And that was the first comment we both had.

They play fast. Like, they play very aggressive here. You saw it all day today. All day. And when you have a confident spine of the defense, well, when Fred Warner, hopefully is healthy, but with Jimmy Ward and Tart, it's just like having these guys playing,

they have a mindset, especially the safeties. It's just like they're, they're not headhunters, but they're willing to bring the wood. And they're very, very smart players, very cerebral, have a great awareness.

So they play so fast on the back end. And it matches kind of that ears pin back that the front plays with. So it's kind of like, you know, a better Jim Leonard back there. You know, Jim letter clean up all the Rex Ryan's messes. They run all these blitzes.

So like, but that's the funny part is they, there's no messes because they only bring four. They only bring four guys. to create as much havoc as they do with only bringing four is amazing. The craziest thing to do is run a twist. Like that's their blitzes. But that's the best way to win.

Like that's, if you want to stop any offense, just win with four. Like just pass rush for four and win with that because it's so hard to beat zone coverage for 30 dropbacks in a game. It's just, it's hard. It's these zones are so much tighter. It's NFL windows over and over and over. When you're being, when you're playing against man, you kind of know, if I wear it out there, I can maybe get this guy. CD Lam's going to torch this guy over a game, yada, yada, yada.

But it's like when he plays zone, it's like, I got to squeeze this in at the right at the right time. It gets a linebacker that knows exactly what the hell we're running because we run five concepts. So now we get Niners Packers again. Yeah. Which is a movie that Packers fans have seen a couple too many times. I mean, it, I think if you just look at it initially, just first kind of glance at the matchup, the Packers run defense has been a.

problem at times this year. Yep. And we still have a Niners team that not really need, don't really need to get into some of the, like the details of the run game today. More of the same. I mean, it's just, yeah, yeah.

The split. The spilts a touchdown. They do a great job of motioning at Van derrush out. Kittle seals the edge. I mean, we stuff we've all seen a million times. Except you see Tom Compton making a huge block. That's like, okay, there we go. Another, another guy stepping up.

But yeah. Yeah. We know, we know, that's one concern. And then you talk about, think about quarterbacks who can make those throws. Again, zone coverage, right? Which is all I need is six inches. That's what Rogers can give you. It's a fantastic matchup on paper.

It's just one of those games where I am very excited to see how that unfolds and what it ends up looking like. It's going to be a lot of speed. That's like the Packers have a lot of speed on defense. And then also you're going to have this foreign Irish team that's built on versatility and speed. So it's going to be fun. It's going to be a lot of, I think, juice shack motions, you know, like some toss outside zones. you're going to see Savage and Amos flying up. Like it's going to be, it's going to be some fun, fun stuff.

But that's exactly it. And especially on the other side is watching this Packers offense going against like Fred Warner. I love the quarterback linebacker matchups there like that. It's so old school, right? Like just like the communications that they're both going to have. For sure. Oh, yeah. No, it's going to be a really, really good one.

But it's not, uh, it's not the Packers. We got to remember it's not the Packers run defense in the last two years, which was like a joke in itself. But they still. It's not that bad. But it's definitely a week. If you're stacking up strengths and weaknesses, I think it's going to be something that we'll watch. We'll obviously have a ton of time to preview that game here over the next week or so. All right.

It's time for Cowboys Postmortem. Jerry's pissed. Oh, my God. I mean, it's so weird. So I've covered a couple of Cowboys games. It's bizarre that the owner talks after games. Like the fact that he just gives a press conference after these games. And he just does it in the tunnel.

It is a strange experience if you've ever seen it. So he comes out, obviously, I'm sure still pretty emotional after that ending of the playoff game when you think you had real Super Bowl aspirations essentially says when you're this good, when you have this many good players, this can't be the result. What do you think that means? I think the Grim Reaper might be coming because that's not a really a, really a, Words of faith, I guess is a good way to put it. It's not a measured comment either.

I mean, it's, nothing back there. No, it's, it's also saying like, hey, we have freaking players use them. Like, that's basically what he's saying or we'll find somebody that

will use them properly. Because that's, I mean, that's not mincing any words, especially also the other thing that's bizarre with Jerry Jones too. I mean, there's a lot of things. But,

but the, like, he also does like a drive time show like in the middle of the week where he'll just answer like personnel questions. They'll be like, Hey, so so banged up. He's the GM. Yeah.

Hey, he just got an ankle. It's like, oh my God. Can you like, can you any of it under wraps? This is one of the better things. Just point blank. I'll lay it out there for you. Do you think the Cowboys would be better off if they moved on from Mike McCarthy? Yeah, I do.

It's, I mean, there's enough signs where it's like, if you want to be a legit Super Bowl team, how many of these close games you think you're going to be in? Like this, this is just. week one of the playoffs. Then you'd have to play, say they won this week and they came out one by one point. They drove down and scored. Then they have another game next week against a really good opponent. And if they win that one, they have another really good opponent.

And then if they win that one, it's a Super Bowl. So it's like, these don't just go away. It's like they get magnified. And if you're going to go on a four game win streak, like a lot of these are going to crop up. And it's just there's, he has a history of it. This is the same guy that Jordy Nelson had to hide a challenge flag from him. And that was like, you know, like seven years ago, right? I mean, it's the same guy.

And it's nothing's changed. Nothing's changed with it. And so like that's just, I think he is just going to be in Achilles Hill always unless they have some Barry Switzer level, talent level like they had in the mid-90s. Well, they're close. Close. Right? I mean, it's, they're not.

Maybe they all want to. They are absolutely. If you were stacking up every roster in the league, they're in the top three, probably right. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They're on the podium. I mean, they are right there. in the conversation for having the best

assemblance of talent in the entire NFL. And over the second half of the season from week 11 on, they were 10th in EPA per play on offense with arguably the best offense of personnel in football. Okay? So let's project this forward a little bit. Let's say you talk

yourself, you know, we're 12 and 5. Yeah. Real contender. If we just, if this changes and this changes, we're close. Their defense is not going to be as good as it was. can't this year next year. It's not going to be. The turnovers are not going to be even close to what they were. I mean, you can see it. You can see the writing on the wall. And that's even without Dan Quinn getting a head coaching job, which it seems like he probably will if he wants one. So if you're turning over defensive coordinators next year, also, I have no idea, can't really speak to this, very curious what the overall locker room feel and culture is like when removing Dan Quinn next year. And what? what role he played in that entire thing this year and what the defense, just attitude,

everything else, beyond the schematics of it, what that'll look like if you just take him out of the equation. So let's just say their defense next year is fine. Like it's a good defense, but not even close to this. And you have the same offense. You're looking at a 10 and 7 season and another exit. Like if you go with this exact formula again, to me it's underwhelming. And if you are projecting into the future and just assume the. defense is going to take a step back, Mike Parsons, whoever.

Just think about little things. Rainie Gregory is a free agent. Jay Runkers is a free agent. This team's $13 million over the cap. It's these little tiny things that eventually start to fall away where you're going to regress a little bit. And then where does that leave you? I also think, I don't know how to necessarily extricate the Kellynne Moore side of this

from the Mike McCarthy side of this, right? When I watched the Cowboys offense over the last couple months, the word that keeps coming back to me is static. It feels static. And I don't know where to lay blame for that, but I just don't want to see them continuing to go down this road. Because this road with this personnel, I think, leads you again to disappointment. I think, and this is not, it's not related to McCarthy. I mean, it is related to McCarthy in a way.

It feels like that Dak almost needs to be challenged with some of this stuff a little bit. Like, I feel like this offense is, he's very much in his comfort zone, which is a good thing. You want quarterback. But they've done it on purpose, right? They kept more for a reason. Same terminology. The terminology is the same. It's designed to make him feel comfortable.

And you can just see, but they have that kind of wall of ideas, that ceiling of ideas. Like, because it just, you watch this stuff. Like, that's what I've said this many of times is that I like watching this offense, a lot of especially protection stuff because it's Linnahan. And it's that, and that was my dad's office coordinator. And that's very good at it. And extremely good. And that's, and the communication and stuff and how he handles it's so cool to watch.

because it's the best of the best as far as mental stuff. But you can see that because it's the same concepts, the same two by two stuff with stop routes. It's the same, you know, just like getting in like they just like when they have new ideas, you can tell like it looked really good on the whiteboard. And then also it goes out there and you're like, like who's lining up where? Every time they get in a third down and a fourth down, like a like you can tell a unique formation, like a designery formation that they don't run a lot.

You can see all the receivers trying to communicate and kind of like, figure it out. So like either the players got to take ownership or something is happening that's not getting across these players because it just seems so many times they're just like, where do I let? Oh, one guy's on the ball, one guy's off the ball. CD's jogging out to his spot because he had to ask where he was going. Like it's like it's just when you see that over and over, especially on third downs because third downs are the plays, third down in red zones where the plays change a lot week to week.

When you see those guys kind of having the communicate and go, what do I got? That's that's always like good. that's a little scary because that's, that's usually the teaching that happens during a week or just the process that happens during a week. Some of it could be on the players, don't get me wrong, but it's like,

you don't see that happen a lot with the 40-9ers, do you? That's the exact comparison I was going to make. Think of the- You never see that when you watch these two offenses play. How easy the Niners make it on their players and especially on their quarterback consistently. You know, Kyle Shanahan,

it's going to be a mixed bag when it comes to game management stuff every once in a while, right? Yes. The fourth-down field goal in the first half, fourth down punt, which I think you could argue either way, but I probably would have gone forward in that moment. And then the shift before the quarterback sneak that kind of screws them over. Here's the difference. Kyle Shanahan is going to Galaxy brain some stuff at some points when it comes to decision-making management stuff.

Every other moment of the game, he's giving you an advantage. Every single other moment of the game as an offensive coach, he is creating advantages for you. Mike McCarthy is going to do the galaxy brain shit without creating any advantages for you for the other 59 minutes of the game. Yeah, yeah, it puts you in worse situations. It's like you only have so many resources in the game. And he feels like you're negative two as soon as he line up with him

because he's going to waste the time out. He's not going to use the time out correctly. He's just going to like, I don't know, like punt when you're down two scores. Like that they add up. You can get away with it when you have a certain amount of talent over his season. but now it's like it catches up to you. You create your own luck and you create your own bad luck. I'm a big believer in that.

That's what it feels like every game with him is just like, don't fuck it up, Mike. That's really what it feels like. 49ers is don't fuck it up, Jimmy G and Brunskill. Like for them, it's like don't screw it up. Mike McCarthy, please. So putting a pin in this and just a little period at the end of this sentence,

do you think the Niners can win the Super Bowl? If they get hot, yeah. It's the same formula from two years ago. I think so too. more explosive offense. Yeah. I feel like their defense is really kind of self. I mean,

if both is healthy. Assume he'll be back, right? Yeah. I mean, it's, I don't want to speculate with a head injury, but there's a,

it's not like a knee. There's a chance he's back. And Warner tried to come back in. He did. So hopefully he can come back as well. So if they're back healthy, I mean, it just,

it really does feel like they have a gear. And the way their defense is just collectively playing right now. I think they're pretty scary. It's just, I understand why we had to do it in the moment. I totally understand it. The panic about Shanahan early in the season just seems so funny in retrospect now.

Right. It just seems so funny in retrospect. We were looking at our membership cards kind of going like, huh, like, what do I do with this? And that's the, that's the scary part about this. Your corner's bet's over. It's folded off. When is the first Kyle Shanahan conversation we ever had?

When I was like, this guy's good. 14 to 14? It was when he was the coordinator for the Browns. Browns. It was when he was with the Browns. So yeah, 14. I mean, it was, again, that card is worn on the edges, right? Like, I had to get it laminated so it wouldn't disintegrate in my wallet.

And now I'm sitting there really wondering about it. But I'm so glad I held on to it because this team again looks very dangerous as we get to the playoffs. You took it off eBay. You're like, yeah. It was the right move. It was the right move. All right. Let's get to the less competitive games today.

Let's start with the night game. I mean, the Chiefs score 42 points. The Steelers, I guess, score 21 points, if we want to give them credit for that. About what we expected. I mean, I really don't know how much overall analysis there is to do about the final score. I think we can get into some of the aspects of the Chief's offense and what it looked like. I mean, they just made it look easy in stretches, right? I mean, that sequence in the second quarter,

I think they scored three touchdowns in five minutes, less than five minutes. You're like, oh, yeah. Well, that's, so here's, is that oh, yeah, feeling? Like, is it, oh, yeah, all the way? Because there were moments tonight where it's like, Jesus, like them burning down a defense in two plays, and Mahomes kind of making these plays outside of structure. I mean, it was glimmerers of what we're used to from the last few years. I mean, is that a product of a Steelers team overall that just doesn't have it?

or do you feel like that's an indicator of what we could see here over the course of the playoffs? Oh, man. That's always in the middle, huh? Watching the Chiefs first Bengals game, and I did a Twitch stream of it, watching what the Chiefs were getting to on offense, maybe feel like they kind of found their groove back a little bit. Give me an example. Anything you saw tonight that you feel like was similar to that that makes you feel good?

Getting back to a lot of like 2019 concepts. And I stated this a little bit before, but one of them would be creating four by ones where they run just a simple spacing concept, which is they have two end breakers and they have something behind it, create a high, low, but then they create a four by one concept with it with the back. Getting to the screen games as well, but not the running back screens, which is also, you know, we're probably going to talk about McKinnon in a second. But getting to that type of game, also just other stuff in the past game, running curl flats. they've gotten to that. Just other concepts too. Oh, we talked about they ran the WASP concept recently as well.

Yeah. Which is just a deep sail route. So getting to those types of plays and getting to where Mahomes feels comfortable, breaking contain or doing kind of his exaggerated step up where he kind of sprints forward. He's using Orlando Brown size to his benefit. It's basically, he's basically going like, the defender,

the edge might beat Orlando Brown like around the end, but he can't get back up field because Orlando Brown's so big. So that's why Mahomes is that super high step out because it's just a, it's just a shield. Like it's just a giant wall for him. It's hilarious. But I think because those concepts now Mahomes is like, okay, this is my bread and butter. These are the plays I know. This is Kelsey on ISO routes.

Okay. I know when I step up and break and tame, I know where the flow of the play goes, as opposed to maybe stepping up. Multiple different times. It's like a planned chaos. Like, and that's where Mahomes is as best. It's within the constraints of where the routes are. But he extends it just that extra half second.

And then his arm is able to get, you know, create the throws and make the ankles work. So it just feels like he's comfortable with what they're running. And then he just adds his little Mahomes magic that he likes to do. I thought it was so cool today watching him kind of play with what. Like, no matter what JJ did, because the chiefs do such a great job, even when they're not shipping, just by alignment. I mean, even very rarely, very rarely have we seen one pass rusher. wreck a game against the Chiefs. Bosa almost did it in the Super Bowl a couple years ago, still didn't, right?

I mean, the Chiefs won that game. I mean, it was only when the entire offensive line had completely crumbled that we saw pass rush really tear them down. And one of the reasons for that is that they're very, very intentional about how they give help to guys. And it's not always chips. It's just influence. If you line, a tight end up, not necessarily as an inline tight end, but close to the

formation split off. Just get right. Just get close to him. Just just nudge your shoulder against him, make him think you're going to do that. And that happened decent amount today. And then when Watt would go inside in order to avoid whatever that presence was, then you allow Mahomes to escape and make some of those plays downfield. And his feel for when to do that and when not to and then just the explosive nature of

what he can do when he gets outside the pocket, that's what you saw today. Yeah, especially it's insane. what they can do on third and second and long. Like those plays. Yeah, those should be huge positive plays for defenses and they turn into explosive gains for the offense. Not just, oh, we barely got the first down. It's like, no, it's a 40-yard gain when it was third and 18. And that's just such a huge swing because he's hunting.

He's always hunting. He goes, all right, this concept, all right, we're going to go, it's third and long. You only go around so much that actually gets past the sticks. There's like three or four concepts you really get to. Okay, we're running sail or wasp. Okay, that outbreaker might not be open when I first hit my drop. But if I extend this play an extra second, then those zones change. It's just the angle of where he throws it from and also where the angle of the route is.

So it might be covered from the pocket. But if I break contained to the right, also that's a different angle. It's like an extended sprint out. I mean, that's what he turns it into. Like anytime you see those third shorts or red zone plays with quarterbacks, that's what they're doing. They're changing the launch point, quote unquote. That's exactly what it is. It's just an extended version that goes for 40 yards instead of four.

and just do it about 12 times a game. Speaking of the Red Zone stuff, I mean, that was my favorite part of watching that game tonight. I saw the Red Zone nonsense that they have. Consents, yeah. But you know what? I think that there is something to that. It's where they're having a good time and it's been an uneven year for them at times

offensively. If you can really kind of stick it to a team with some of those moments in the Red Zone and just pile it up, score a bunch of touchdowns where you run out of fireworks in the stadium, it's not necessarily the worst thing this time of year. And you saw it. So all different types of things. I mean, the McKinnon little flip for the touchdown. The diamond formation with Kelsey throwing a touchdown, just all of the eye candy they use in that area of the field.

I think that's where their creativity shows a little bit and getting that sort of creative juice flowing when, again, it hasn't necessarily been the smoothest season. I think there's a benefit to that. Oh, yeah. And it makes it a pain in the ass for the next opponent to go through and go, oh, man, what they're going to do after this? You're just thinking about the quality control, guys. That's all you're thinking about. Oh, I can. because anytime there's like a game that goes like 92 plays I'm like man I feel bad for the guy that has to break that down just 92 plays going in putting in defensive formations and all that I thought they influence I think uh Andy Reid and Mahomes get influenced on their shovel plays from Da Vinci's Vitruvian man you know the

because I got a choke laugh yes it's cool doing that to me like two days after I get over my COVID but honestly that's what it is it's like he's like We've already hit the upper arm. So let's see if we can go, you know, quarter release, you know, submarine it in there. Let's just toss it in there. I love it. It's, but that's just, it's confidence. Because when those plays, you don't run those plays when you're feeling a little edgy,

unless you're Matt Nagy, you know, like just copying, pasting what Andy Reed's trying to do. But you don't run those when you're not feeling good about yourself. When you're doing the twirl stuff, like they haven't done that in a couple of weeks, but the shifts with the twirls, the Jackson 5 stuff. So we'll see if they get to that. So a couple of guys that kind of came out of the woodwork today and played pretty well for them guys that maybe you wouldn't necessarily think guys outside of Kelsey and Hill. And that's going to take us to the State Farm surprisingly great performance of the week presented by State Farm. I want to talk about Jerich McKinnon.

You mentioned a couple different things that I feel like are worth getting into with the ways they used him today. But 142 total yards, 61 or excuse me, 81 as a receiver, 60 yards on the ground. really affected the game. And just when you think about this team and how dangerous they can be, obviously we know what the star power looks like. But when you can get these sort of performances and these sorts of contributions from guys you don't necessarily count on, that's when things get really scary.

Oh, yeah, when the Pringles of the world, but also the jerk, the Jerk McKinnis. I can't believe his name is Byron Pringle. I just like, every time it happens, I'm like, come on. But it's, but what Jared McKinnon, like, even when he was coming out of Georgia Southern, it was just like he was in the you know he was a he was a triple option quarterback and he was insane athlete

like on all the charts smart guy so fast so unbelievably fast and so of course that's probably why you know calis shannon gave him big money with the 40-nighters he was like he was just like outside zone every he thought what elizabeth is right now that's what he thought mckinna was going to be for him but even cranked up but what it adds in andy reed offense they want to go scat protection five man protections, which is getting all five eligibles out as much as possible. They've evolved the offense with, you know, defense. It's got smarter, start clamp it down on if you just want a nickel and dimas running slants and flats the entire game.

But where that offense takes another weep is if the runnerback or the tight end, like a Kelsey, can take those two yard flat routes, those two yards slant routes and they're the ones taking it, making an explosive play out of it. All those screens we run, we're not just getting eight yards in a first down. Screens are designed to be shots, basically. They're designed, yeah, they ease up on the pass rush, but you want, you only run, most offenses run two screens a game, give or take. You want both of those to be explosives, you know, 16, 20 yarders, not eight yards, two, six yards.

So when you get a guy a runback in there that's catching those and turning them into 20-yard gains, it's just, oh, just breeze everything. That's another way you get to T.J. Watt, another way you affect pass rushers without chipping them and helping out with stuff, making linebackers move left and right. You know, it's just that having a running back that can take a flat as a point. opposed to just getting tackled right away. It's like, okay, we got an efficient gain, but barreling up the sideline and create these big plays.

I mean, it's just so huge for any type of offense, especially what the chief's need right now. It's everything that I saw tonight. I mean, just the amount of times he was getting out and they were in five-man protections, you had to worry about five guys in routes. It's a nightmare. I mean, they're just running curl flat with him as the flat route. And when you can start doing that and then attach all this other stuff on the back end, and there's so many things you have to worry about.

That's just consistently just how he was barreling out of the backfield. into certain route combinations and them having to worry about that. And then the screens, it's exactly right. This Andy Reed, I mean, he's a legendary screen guy. Yeah. I mean, their screen game for years and years and years is one of the coolest things they did. Just think about how many Brian Westbrook screens we used to see a decade ago. That's exactly who I'm thinking about when I was talking.

Beautiful it was. Yes. And they've gone away from it over the last couple years. And I'm, so this is my theory. it's not like we have a former chiefs all pro offensive linemen on a podcast I could ask him maybe we'll ask him this week

my theory is one of the reasons they went away from it over the last couple years was just the amount of guys filtering in and out of the lineup on the offensive line screens are details

right screens or details you need to be able to get aiming points down depths down all of it is we need timing everybody needs to be on the same page that becomes more difficult when you're not

your fourth center of the last six weeks. And that's what it's been like for them on the offensive line. But this year, now that Wiley is kind of locked down that right tackle spot, we've got some continuity now. And with the continuity, do we feel a little bit more comfortable dialing up more screens, folding them into the game plan? Because, you know, the other teams use a bunch of screens. The bucks today will get to it.

And we saw the Niners go to that Debo screen where they have used check and kiddle moving out. But that only requires, that's a perimeter screen. That doesn't have that many moving parts. Usually it's one big kickout. Yeah. The chiefs are running these where a lot of guys start getting on the move, more moving pieces, more things that you have to have working in concert with one another. And now that the line has played together for a chunk of the season,

do they feel good about that? And if they feel good about that, what does it do to their offense? Just kind of folding that element in at this stage of the game. It's a better version of a checkdown, like bringing everybody up and then you watch it over the top. Now you have to, corners have to tackle. D-Wine is getting,

like, they're pissed off because they're like, oh my God, I could just pass rush and I just, I thought I beat the tackle. And now the ball's going over my head on a little, you know, dinky screen.

But it's such a great point about a lot of teams I've been around, not a lot of teams, but I've heard teams going, that I've been around. They're like, man, we're not a good screen team.

How do we get better? And it's like, well, you got to run them. You got to, like, practice them. You got to get good on. It's just like any timing play, any pass play, any run play.

It's all about reps together and timing together because there are such landmarks that happen on those screens. That's why Indy is so good at them because everybody knows the landmarks. Running back you're running back. Hey, we're going to clear their alley with one guy. Clear the alley. The other guy's going to work back to like take any trailers down. And that is like also not only just the offense line, but running when they would have like five different running backs every year. Yeah.

Like, I mean, that matters too because that's my homes. You're almost doing no look throws over there because you're like, ah, you dink it on. throw it over to top. It's a really weird throw for quarterbacks. And so like it's just, it's just feel together. But it just that underneath stuff is going to open up stuff down the field because now it's another thing.

It's another, it's the low of a high low. That's what the screens do. And it's just another way you attack. It's changing the launch point for the quarterback too. So even if the old line is having a rough game, we give ourselves a breather. I mean, it's going to get harder and harder as this playoffs goes along.

The other thing that just again, if we're kind of creating reasons that this green game might not have been as prominent. They don't get blitzed. Teams do not blitz them. So if it's a counter to teams bringing pressure at you, they don't really need those counters because they're never blitz. So again, I can just ask Mitch on this

week's show why they've used fewer screens over the last couple of years, but maybe we'll get to that later. All right. That was the State Farm, surprising great performance of the week presented by State Farm. Remember, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Get a quote today. All right. Let's very briefly

look ahead to next week. Bill's Chiefs is everything you could want. I'm going to try to go. And I don't want to jinx it after what happened this weekend when I was supposed to be at two games. But I've, hopefully I can't get COVID again. I was going to say,

you're good now. So my buddy's wedding is on Saturday. I think it's a game. The game is it, it's a night game thinking first flight out. O-R-D-M-C-I and go check that game out because, I mean, what, you can't ask for anything else. No.

When you watch the performances by those two quarterbacks over the last two days, days. Oh, boy. I mean, that's, I can't wait. Can't wait. Yeah,

exactly. I mean, especially how Josh Allen played yesterday. It's like, oh, baby. And you're going to see, well, chiefs will bring some pressure

against the bills too. So you might see some fireworks, baby. Like, you might see some stuff going over the top. Like, it's, that's,

we've talked this entire season. What's the best version of this playoffs? What's the best version of this playoffs? And it's like, every team has the quarterbacks. That's why we want to see Herbert in the playoffs. That's why I want to see Josh Allen

in the playoffs. Okay, maybe not the Colts of Carson Lawrence and Jimmy G with the 49ers. But that was because they had other guys. I was really excited to watch. But I, that's the best version of football is like, you don't chalk it up to like, if it, all the narratives form around the good quarterback play. If the defense plays well, it's like, wow, they really held Mahomes to this. If that's what's fun, it's these stars of stars playing and they're playing so well right now.

I mean, I'm jealous. Speaking of Justin Herbert, we didn't get Justin Herbert today. We got the last game from Ben Rathesberger. got the end of an era in Pittsburgh, right? This is it. And you look at where they are right now. This is a place that we've never seen them in the modern era. Yeah.

Kevin Colbert, their GM moving on after the draft. We know that. He's been there for a decade and a half, I want to say. I mean, for as long as I've been doing this, he's been the Steelers General Manager. They have $50 million in Capspace ending into next year. They have no quarterback. This is an offseason in Pittsburgh, unlike any off season we've seen

at least in the past 15 years. This is a team that had to scrape together Capspace forever. And now they have some. I mean, because they've reached this transitional point. Ian Rappaport, from Metafel Network reported, I think, this morning, that they may look in the first round

for a quarterback rather than trying to find one on the trade market or in free agency. Who knows how that's going to fall? I think the idea of saying, well, we'll just take whatever one's there. It's kind of funny to me. but understandable, like they need to really restart and trading for Jimmy Garapolo

or trading for some sort of stopgap option when you think about how far this team might actually be if you're being honest with yourself, it's hard to imagine the Steelers rebuilding. You know, I think it would be more like what we just saw from the Patriots rather than like a true rebuild, right? Where they go out, they spend some money in free agency,

they try to fill some of those holes, and they pick a rookie quarterback and try to prop him up. Because if you look at it, right, they have $50 million to spend. Watt and Hayward are really the expensive pieces. We'll see what happens with Stefan to it. Obviously, a very strange year and family tragedy. We didn't see him play. That's kind of a question.

The receivers are cheap. You have Claypool there. You have Deontay Johnson there. We're going to have Najjaris back. They need to do some work along the offensive line. But on defense, you still have Hayward. You still have Watt. You still have Macon Fitzpatrick.

Again, probably some work to do in the secondary. They're pretty far away from being like a true contending team, in my opinion. But I also think that they could be solid next year with the right moves. And I wonder if that's where they try to go with it. If they look at what the Patriots, not necessarily learning from what the Patriots did, but if they follow a similar model to how they kind of want to retool this thing on the fly. Yeah. Maybe they call Cam Newton like that.

They did the exact same thing. They found that stuff. gap but that's that's exactly it's especially this qb draft because i've dove into it already and it's it's it's it's barren uh it's not really the one you want to like find your quarterback of the future and i there's a couple guys i like don't get me wrong but it's like not exactly a whole bunch of you know prime prospects like last year was so that's what this whole it's weird i mean what was when did bingo 2004 it was the 2004 draft was ely fit rures and j p lozman uh was that's the fourth QB, everyone forgets about. But just that draft, that's what, 17 years ago. I mean, that's a long

time before the Steelers have had to have these questions. I mean, again, this is a franchise that's that three head coaches in decades. Like, it's not a team that really transitions a lot. They kind of retool, okay, this is our image. We'll just retool. Okay, we got a nice couple new pieces. Oh, look, we found another pass rusher. Look, we're the Steelers. I guess we do that every five years. But it's like, that's what they have kind of always done. So it's just a strange new world. I mean, it really is. And especially with Colbert not there anymore as well. It's like, I don't know. It's, they could go through a lot of paths. I'm curious if they go veteran, like a teddy type, you know, like that type of thing. Like it's just so strange. I, I can't see them be

with a rookie quarterback because it's been so long since we've seen somebody else behind center. I would assume. I think they're going to, but as part of whatever this looks like, Mike Tomlin kind of takes a step back and it's like, what do I want my offensive staff to look like now that we're entering a new world. Yeah. Because when you look at what it's been over the last, really 10 years. Yeah. You know, I mean, obviously, so I can't remember who all the offensive coordinators were specifically, right? It was Wisenhunt, was there in the mid-2000s, and then Wisenhunt got the Cardinals job.

And then Haley ended up coming there, but that was a little bit later. Yeah. I can't remember what the exact, what the exact succession was. But Haley was there, and then there was a. obviously some personality conflicts there, which is shocking. And he gets fired and then they promote Randy Fickner, who and Randy was Ben Rothensberger's quarterback's coach for, I mean, for a decade plus, I'm pretty sure. So that it was always kind of this thing.

If you look at what their offense was 15, 16, that era where they had Antonio Brown and Levian Bell, it's Ben Rothsberger offense. Yeah, I mean, that's what they did. RPAOs and signals. He had a huge. finger on the button there. And then that becomes even more true when Fickner takes over as the offensive coordinator.

Yes. They move on from him last year, the last off season, because their offense was really hard to watch for chunks of the last couple of years. They promote Matt Canada who had been their quarterback coach last year. Yep. Again, feels like a slight tweak in order to maintain some continuity as we know we're getting to the end. So now the slight tweaks aren't necessary, you know, catering to the cost.

comfort level of your 20-year veteran quarterback is no longer a concern. So if that's something you no longer have to worry about, do you cast a wide net and say, we're starting over? What do we want the starting over to look like? I have to assume that will be a process they go through this offseason. Yeah, and especially their old line coach is already out. Yeah, that's right. He's going to college somewhere.

So it's like, I mean, that's already one huge sign that's like, I think that's exactly what's going to be just a total nuke on the office aside, total revamp. a staff, maybe a more creative staff. I can't just creative at the college level, but it's like a creative staff that can work with a young guy that can hybrid, make it easier of a transition because they're, I mean, that like you said,

it was the big bad offense. It was, I mean, just every play was hand signals and freaking RPO's and doing whatever you wanted and they just enabled them. I mean, it made sense for a while, but now obviously see the limits of it.

So that's a normal thing, by the way. Oh, yeah, when you get to the end, you know, I put back in Kellynmore. Yeah, it's, I mean, Philip Rivers at a certain point, ran the Philip Rivers offense with the Chargers.

I mean, what that's kind of, honestly, it's what makes the Packers situation so impressive and so cool to watch is just the marriage between what Rogers wants to do and what that offense wants to do. That doesn't always happen. When you get guys, get to a certain place, sometimes it works. The Peyton Manning offense is what the Broncos ran when Peyton Manning went to them. It's great, wasn't it? And it worked out pretty well. So, and, you know, Brady obviously has a huge. imprint on what the bucks do.

But every once in a while, when you get to the end of that road, it's like, all right, we could probably start over here and figure out what we want to do. It's funny in New England, you didn't have to worry about that because Brady was born of the system that they want to run. But it's always something that you have to kind of consider in these moments. And I would not be surprised at this dealer said, you know what? We're taking a step back. We're thinking about all of these new beginnings as a franchise.

Maybe we think about that on the offensive side of the ball as well. I think so, too. I think that's an easy, and it's an easy way to do it too. Like you, you have plenty of room to do it as far as kind of like a selling point for the entire franchise. Like it's not like we're like, what the hell are you doing there? So I think they can get creative within. Like you say, cast a wide net to whoever's going to be working with the quarterback for next year. It's an interesting situation.

I'm very, very, very curious where the Pittsburgh Steelers go. All right. Let's talk about that Eagles Bucks game again. Pretty one-sided, pretty one-sided from the get-go. just two different calibers of teams is what it felt like while watching that game today. And not necessarily surprised. You know, the Eagles beat up on some bad quarterbacks over the second half of the season, which allows your defense to look functional.

And then you have to play against, as you described him today, a cyborg headed to the Hall of Fame playing some of the best football of his career who can make it look easy. And that's kind of what it fell like today. You know, the Bucks are in one place in their franchise trajectory. The Eagles are in a very different place. And you saw the gap between those two things all afternoon. Yeah, you remember what the gap is.

It's like with quarterback play. You remember the difference between a true contender or an elite quarterback and a happy to be here. You know, a team that's ahead of schedule. Oh, cool. All right. We got playoff bonuses. That's unexpected. Like I think that's how the Eagles got to this game.

Really, I think the most important aspect of this entire game was Tom Brady making the team bus and getting off of it. I think honestly that was as soon as he wind up there and that opening drive, they were totally control. I mean, running tempo, getting the nice penalty call also helps. But just getting in tempo and just being in total control, the entire first drive. And then the first Eagles drive, Todd Bulls showed early and off. And he's like, yeah, I'm, I'm okay with your little college offense. Like, I'm going to show you what a real NFL defense is on third down because he brought some shit today.

He was not having it. Just unafraid. I mean, just totally unafraid. Safety is whizzing down there. 40% blitz rate. 40? 40. 40.

40% blitz rate from the bucks today. On those plays, Jalen Hertz, 9 of 18 for 96 yards and two interceptions. Negative 0.23 EPA. Man. Yeah. You could feel it, right? You could feel it. They were coming from everywhere.

You know, the guys that really jumped out to me on that. Buck's defense today with the safeties. Yes. You know, Winfield, and not even calling Winfield to say it's a safety today is not necessarily right. You know, Whitehead announced his presence early. He had multiple nice plays against the run. They used him as a blitzer often throughout the game.

Antoine Winfield is really, really good. He's a good football player. He's really good. So Murphy Bunting doesn't play today. Winfield's just playing slot corner. Yeah, his nickel. I mean, just an all-pro caliber safety. And when they need him to, it's like, you know,

we're just going to have you play a slot corner today. Can you can you do that for us? And can you blitz as much as we want you to? And just all of those different things. Just be Ronde Barber. Like, just, hey, hey, you got you. Just be Rodney Barber and do well at it. I mean, watching those two guys,

just all the different roles they were filling what they were asked to do. I mean, I feel like that's kind of the type of day it was for that defense, where everybody is pitching in. Everybody is making contributions. And those are the two guys to me that really stuck out. I absolutely concur. that they kind of had a nice mix of they were running two man, but they're running eight man drop two man with Joe Tryon.

Like they would run down on third down. And usually you don't run two man against a scrambling quarterback because that's one way you get teams out of it as the quarterback runs. There's no eyes on the quarterback. How the bucks circumvented that was, hey, let's just have our first round pick that's 265, runs a four, six and change. Let's just drop them and just have them shadow Jalen Hurts. It was interesting because he would line up often on the edge.

and then kind of swing back around. So you don't know where guys are coming from necessarily. It looks like a pressure look, but they're only bringing four. Again, just one more layer of kind of complexity and making it difficult on the quarterback. And when you, and we said we're talking about the Mac Jones

against the Bill's preview, when teams run two men, what they're saying is we don't think you can scramble or we don't think you can make hero throws. And that's what the bucks we're doing today. They're like, hey, we know you can run around a little bit,

but we're going to have this, you know, six five guy running around with you. So try and make some bender throw, some out throws. He hit one, I think to Goddard. But it was like, really, that was seldom. And also just the pressures that they were bringing. Like, they had Vita Vaya and Suea dropping at one point and brought Antoine

Winfield off the slot. And then like he just bullied the runnerback and got the sack. It was, you know, they really made it hard. And what all those pressure looks, that's what, that's the double whammy that, especially Todd Bowles's pressures because he kind of does his own little thing with these. Like, only one that kind of relates to him is, maybe spags. Like they kind of like,

they're not from the same branch, but kind of the same feel with their pressures. Is that you don't know where the, if they run, say they do bring one guy, you don't know where the angles of the zone droppers are going to come from. Yeah. And you can see that was messing J.

1 Hertz up every time because he had a, oh, shoot, is that guy dropping out underneath it? Or is he pushing the number two? Or is he coming as well? And you can see it when you don't see a quarterback like, like,

like he can't anticipate. Like he, and I think the commentator, I think it was Joe Buck. I'm sorry, Troy Aikman today was just going, yeah, he's not really anticipating anything. Troy was so mad to be there. That was incredible.

That's the most of ever liked Akeman was just like right there at the end. He was so bitter about having to be big. Really, what's like I could have called it? Like really would have loved to call that one, huh? And it was like, oh, wow. He's just on Tom Brady knifing a defense up. But you could just, you could just see them like, they're always a page behind.

Jalen Hertz was just trying to catch up and just slow his brain down. and then he couldn't get the scrambles going. That kind of usually gets them going, kind of gets them in rhythm. You take that away. That's his crutch and it's really, really hard. Saw it early in the game. They tried to line up in a situation where I think it was three by one with Goddard as the lone receiver to the right side. And then they had walkins as the number three on the other side with speed there trying to run that deep over.

They hit it later in the game. I mean, again, I think it was against quarters coverage. And they had walkins on it. early in the game and Hertz just missed it. I mean, he reset and he was looking at him. He absolutely could have had it. So that's one of those things. If you're going to play a Bucks team that's much better than you,

you need to play borderline perfect football. And they didn't. You have moments like that. The Whitehead TFL, I think, on the first or second drive, got it runs a route. I mean, he was supposed, I don't know what it was supposed to be, whether it was supposed to be an RPO or you're supposed to block him. Whatever.

They're not on the same page. Nobody blocks Jordan White. It's a five-yard loss. You can't have those plays. when you're playing against the Hall of Fame Cyborg, playing the way that he is. And that's kind of the day it was for the Eagles. We'll get into the hurt stuff in a second. Just talking very briefly about the Bucks offense, nothing revolutionary and nothing out of character for them.

The thing that really struck me was just how quickly Brady was able to get the ball out all day in a way that wasn't a detriment to them at all. His average time to throw when blitz today was 1.96 seconds. It was 7 of 8 for 66 yards. Under 2. Under 2. It's like big bad to throw an RPO. You have to blitz. You feel like you have to bring pressure because if you're going to sit in those static zones that the Eagles play, you're just totally outgunned.

Even with Godwin and Brown not playing. Because what the buck's just, it's, we use the term surgical when referring. to quarterback play a lot. Watching what Brady does when teams are playing those zones is literally like watching someone do heart surgery with how precise it all is. Because what the Bucks do such a great job of is that they'll just run guys out and run high lows on people. High lows.

So you'll just have, you'll have a guy clear out, have somebody come right behind it and you're isolating one defender and making him wrong if you have a quarterback that can on time make the correct assumption about where that defender is going to go every single play. Luckily, the Bucks have a quarterback who can do that. And his ability to be, and it's why in those moments he gets so pissed at Tyler Johnson when he throttles down or when his timing isn't off,

it's because he is going to be perfect on these plays. If you're not, you're fucking with me. You can't do this. I need you to be in the exact right spots because when they're leaving that amount of air in the defense, I can take advantage of it if you're exactly where I need you to be. And when they are, that's what he can do. It's a little, it's like watching someone perform surgery.

It's insane. It is. And I love what you said, the timing of it. Anyone can run these high lows. And really it's just, it's variations of drive. Drive is a crosser and a basic dig where I'm going to get everyone knows what a basic now is like, that's the middle, middle 12 to 14-yard dig. And when they're running these and they run just variations, guys coming from the same

side, coming for opposite sides. different kind of concepts, but just the core idea. But when you have a guy that just goes out of the gun, three point throw, it gives it's just like the checkdowns with Josh Allen. It gives them so much room to work with that if someone's thrown it late or throws it like where they shouldn't, they should maybe be pushing the ball, those are three yard gains, four year gains, even if the linebacker isn't good. But if you got hitting them right away, those turn to eight yard gains. And those are a pain the ass because it's just like a run play almost. Like you have to tackle and form and fit up. And everyone's got. Especially. It's absolutely an.

extension of their run game. It is. It's a forward run. That's how they treat it anyways. And how they use Mike Evans today. Like, I mean, well, the first whole drive of tempo was all three by one, which I thought was really cool. They just went the same formation the entire time down. And it was like they had, when you had the surgeon, like you say with Tom Brady and everything comes out on time every single time, it just feels so easy because they'll go, Mike Evans is in the slot. Oh, look at that. The egos are a manned coverage. So now we have Mike Evans, running an outbreak or against man. Oh, wow, they know that they're in zone.

So we're going to have Mike Evans on the outside running a stop route. And it's kind of like they always were just keeping the offense and defense, keeping the Eagles a page behind. And when you have a quarterback that just finds, there's a machine and just knows exactly where to go with the ball exactly on time. His average time to throw just period today was 2.17 from next gen stats, which is the fastest of any quarterback this entire season of any game. So it's, but it's not like he's just thrown little bubbles like Big Ben or a little

slants. It's like, no, these are 12-yard gains, 14-yard gains. And the pass rush can't do anything. Can't do shit about it. So it's, it's impossible to stop when it's on. Like, it just is, even if you get the sacks like the Eagles did today. Like Ryan Kerrigan was beaten up on the right tackle. The worst thing. Well, we can get to that. Yeah. That's concern is that we can, you mean, we can talk about it now. Yeah. You watch what they did today. And Evan's stuff is watching what they did, putting him in the slot against Devante Maddox so often. It's just chess piece. And. But here's my concern about this, okay? He's their only chess piece now. You know, Gronk is still playing very well, but it's not having that number two receiver. You saw it come up today. You saw it when they're having Breschad Perriman runs slants.

And they're having to worry about it's just not what he does, but they're running out of guys. Yep. So you're going to have to put square pegs in round holes with some of these receiving roles. And when you're playing against a team that can take advantage of it, it with it doesn't have a second year quarterback who is still figuring a lot of stuff out playing in an offense that's pretty well tailored to what he does but tailored in a very

specific way when you're having to play against Matthew Stafford next week potentially it's a little bit different okay so do those deficiencies personnel wise show up and now where are those deficiencies in the receiving options if you have those paramin or Tyler Johnson plays in big moments. Those mean a lot more against the Rams. And now what happens with Wurfs? That to me is the biggest question because there are still areas of this roster where they have defined advantages. Quarterback is going to be one consistently. Good one to have. Their offensive line was going to be a defined advantage against most teams they were going to play against. If you're having to play Wells instead of Tristan Wurfs, that suddenly changes. I thought putting him back out there today was

malpractice. Oh, my God. It's bad. You got it. You have to protect a guy. You have to save him from himself in that moment. Sit out. You're done. We're up by 17 points against a team that can't score.

You're done. Players are always going to say they're fine. Like always, always, always. They're psycho competitive. And I understand it's a variance thing, right? Like he. That's the thing. It's why Brady was still out there.

But it's like, guys, can't do that. I know. It's not a regular season game. It's bad for him. It is unfair to him in that moment to have him in the game. And what Kerrigan was doing to him, it's because you have to think about the bigger picture in that moment. It is not about one game against the Eagles or making sure.

I'm sure there's an element to it where it's like, I want him to trust me. I want him to think, you know, he says he's okay. And that they're that dynamic between player and coach, it's complicated. Yeah.

I get that. But in that moment, you're sitting down. Thank you. Appreciate your day. You've already proven yourself. You're an all pro. Yep.

Exactly. Get healthy. We need you next week. We need you next week. It's a run. It's not, you know, we got,

we got to win multiple games in a row. also just having the right tackle out too. Even with Gronk being what 75% of what peak Gronk is, you know, still a useful, very useful player is now with the right tackle being a potential weakness is, okay, now we have to chip help. So now it's either the running back not getting out on a route. It's a tight end not getting on a route right away. You know, they have to, you know, make sure the right tackle could hold up for 60 snaps. So that it's just another element that they have to account for.

At first it was like, okay, well, Godwin's out. well, Tyler Johnson give us 60% of that. You know, maybe, you know, he'll stop short when he's breaking across the field maybe once or twice. But, you know, he's, we can work with him. But now when I'll send the right tackles, that's a domino effect. And especially with the strength of the team. So it's just, it's very interesting. I want to see what this next, what they, how they reconfigure their offense if Worf says out,

which is just so funny. You don't think of an offense alignment affecting the past game other than, you know, the past rush getting home, but actually affecting the concepts that can be run. So I'm curious how they kind of circumvent that. We'll see what happens with who they play. Obviously, it's going to depend on who wins the Monday Night game. I think that Rams bucks again would be a really cool game to watch. We'll see what happens in that game.

But not a surprising outcome. Now we come to what's next for the Eagles. It's hard when you're playing in a playoff game. You always believe you're going to win, right? You go into that game and you're believing you're going to win. It's in the moment there isn't that we're so glad to be here. That eventually evaporates by the time kickoff happens. But hopefully with some clarity that night, the next day as an organization,

you can kind of sit there and say, we weren't supposed to be here. And the Eagles weren't supposed to be here. This was never supposed to be a playoff team. And I think that kind of the warm and fuzzy feelings you got about getting in and what the offense looks like at times this year and some of the pieces that you found, I think that as a franchise, you can feel pretty damn good about a lot of stuff that happened. And I hope that they can kind of step back and tap into that here over the next 72 hours as the sting wears off a little bit. Yeah, it's the ending of Finding Nemo when the fish, they break out and they're in the bag and they sit in the water.

And they go, yeah, yeah. Then now what? Like that's kind of how it is right there. It was exciting. We did it. Okay. All right. Now what do we do?

Like, but they got three draft pick, three first round picks. They got cab space now. They hit on Devante Smith. They got some nice pieces of offensive line, of course. But it's interesting. I mean, they've did well enough that now they have to figure out what hurts is for them. And that's going to be very interesting as well. And then they got ammunition to go in many different directions at the quarterback position

or any position they want to attack. So I'm curious what this Eagles team is going to do. But by all measures of a season, it's a success, not just the trades. The trades alone were a success, but then the season, And shoot, I mean, they were up there. We thought one of the worst rosters in the NFL turned into an actually feisty roster with some nice pieces. So it's a successful year. Like, I mean, good for Eagles.

But they were seven seats going against a potential contender. The entire point of the season for the Eagles was to evaluate how many building block players that you had. Yep. And what and whether this was the quarterback. Yeah. Okay. You have found building block players. Yes.

So my lot of thing is amazing. An unbelievable success story. Yes. I mean, to stumble, and not stumbles. You do work to find one of those guys. But to conjure a left tackle out of thin air that is 24 years old or whatever he is on a pretty good contract. That's nice. Yeah.

Okay. You still have Lane Johnson. Landed Dickerson, hopefully, is your left guard for however long. If Kelsey comes back, you feel really good about the offensive line. Devante Smith, hell yeah, let's do this. The rigor thing is an unmitigated disaster. watching him today, it's just, I feel bad for him. I do too.

He has no. I feel bad for him. I mean, I just, it's, that's, it's something that's going to follow him around forever. I mean, the fact that it's one pick before Jefferson and Justin Jefferson is a top four player in his position already. It's going to follow Howie Roseman around forever. And I think he knows that. And it's going to follow Jayon Rager around forever. I honestly feel bad for him at this point.

So you need another pass catching option, whatever that looks like. But Goddard is good. Okay. So you have Goddard. you have Devante Smith. We'll see what happens with the other pass catcher. Defense is where they absolutely need an overhaul. So much.

That is the most, when you watch that game today, I think that was the most illuminating thing that happened, is that their defense is not ready for prime time. You got Hargrave, you got this version of Fletcher Cox, who you're not moving out from, he's very expensive, and they just redid his deal. You have Josh Sweat, and then you have Darius Slay and Avanti Maddox.

Everything else is on the table. Everything. And now you have three first round picks. Yes. So what do you do with them? Do you go pick a bunch of defensive players and kind of retool that? I think that's a really good option. Or do those three first round picks turn into something else?

What do you think they should do at quarterback? I think what hurts a ceiling is kind of like what you saw today. Or I shouldn't say seal it. His blemishes. and this is not what he's improved on. He's improved a little bit of being able to find that first and second read. But in between the numbers, it's sketchy. Like he doesn't know.

There's a lot of concepts he's not comfortable with. If it's not working out, he gets a benefit from a lot of pockets, like a lot of safe, big pockets where he gets to hang out. And then he creates out of it. He goes one and down with his reads. I think his potential is a high, high end backup spot starter type. And so I think they got to go quarterback shopping. I do.

I think this team has such nice pieces and such ways to do and such avenues to build this team that's like they can find something. And I mean, there's some quarterbacks that are going to be on the market. So I think they need an upgrade there. I really like Jammerz. I want to be proven wrong. Like I want to say I want him to take it next leap. But the stuff that I've seen his limitations in, especially reading the field from numbers to numbers, it's just like he hasn't improved where I want him to improve throughout this year. That's still been an issue with him.

This is Russell Wilson team? I mean, isn't one of the markets that he did, did, but didn't leak out like that he, uh, it's just kind of what it feels like to me. If he, if he's one of those guys that, if he's available. All the news out of Seattle so far is that probably no changes with John Schneider and Pete Carroll. If there is going to be changes of some kind, is it with Russell Wilson? Is this the type of team where you got those three first round picks and you can trade for him? You have $30 million in cap space around next year.

have enough wiggle room to fit a quarterback no matter how you chase one. I think their mindset should be we're looking for an upgrade if we don't get one, we can roll with him again. Exactly. And it's not because of a lack of faith in J-1-Hertz, but I think that the ceiling, you can kind of see it. And I do feel like they might be closer than we think, right? Where you get the quarterback, you know, a couple other tweaks here and there.

And I'm not saying they're a contender next year. No. But what does this team look like as currently constructed with Russell Wilson? Even more feisty than they are right now. And that's the thing. Yes, I know. And how do you take? I mean,

it's just. And what do we know about defense? Defense can take a big leap. If you just hit a couple guys, you find some stopgap guys. Like it's, that's the thing is they have a path to also being like, you know, a 1011 win team where it's like, yeah, they are a playoff team, not like, oh, they're happy to be here and lucky to be here

and get that check. So they already build out a line. They have a left tackle in other pieces that it's like. That's kind of what I want to see. it. Because I want to see him with that offensive line. I know. I think with Devante Smith. With this stage of his career, if he played behind that offensive line, what would he look like? I don't know. I don't know if he's going to be an MVP candidate, but I just think that I was thinking about watching the game today. It was like if you just dropped

him in right now, what does it look like? I think it gets pretty interesting. I kind of do. I do too. It's big enough market. Russell might like that. All right. Very quickly before we get out of here. Let's do quick Rams Cardinals preview. See if I can find it in my notes. I appreciate you being a trooper and letting us do it now and not earlier in the week when I did not have time to do it because I was very sick and trying to get over it. I'm glad you're okay, bud. All right. So just, I guess, first blush, what is the first thing you think about when you're considering the matchup and what it's going to look like?

Rams offense, Cardinals, defense, whether they can take it, whether it's going to be like the first matchup, their second matchup, really, where they can take advantage. of some of the Cardinals blemishes, as far as just in the run game especially, some of the pressures, kind of maybe a guy popping free, you know, where they get OBJ, like where he has an advantage, a large chunk of these snaps, where they get him going, just truly going, just peppering them even at sometimes. Sometimes you pepper a receiver, like even when you know it's not the ideal play. Look at the Packers with Devante Adams. He throws bubbles to him when it's like, Aaron, you shouldn't be thrown that bubble.

But he's trying to get him going. I think that's what they try to go. I think that you're going to see a steady, steady run game, good chunk of naked and play action shot plays like we know with the Rams, but I think they really crank that up, trying to take advantage of trying to get advantage of trying to get back. Trying to take advantage of trying to get back. We're figuring out who we are on the edge. Well, we have no contain on the backside. So I think you're going to see the Rams trying to take advantage with the kind of the fine ball, get ball. I think that's going to be the more exciting part of the matchup.

And then the other side, you know, that's basically Kyle Ir versus whether he can find Troy Reader on every single play. I think that when you watch the Cardinals defense, just their past defense in general, if you don't stress them, if you just come out and try to say, we're going to play dropback and just try to sling it around on you, they're really, really good at sucking the air out of the defense. I mean, if you try to just push the ball down the field, they're caught through a playup today where it's one of those, Stafford has won a game at least, just like a fuck it throw.

He has at least won a game. We're just like, ah, fuck it. And against the Cardinals, that's not, you should not. be playing that way. Like, you just cannot be trying to force these things and drop back without any sort of matchup advantages or schematic advantages. Like, they should be deep in their bag of nonsense like they were in the first game, right? Think about how many shots he hit off play action in that first game.

Perfect example. First half, I want to say it was a first and ten. They've cut a cup in the back field running a little option route against Isaiah Simmons. Like, there's nothing wrong with spamming the easy buttons. Yes. against that sort of defense. There's nothing wrong with it.

And I think that that is the way to go. Like that's just what it feels like to me. On the other side of the ball, I'm genuinely concerned for the Rams sake about their injuries in the secondary. Yeah. Genuinely concerned. Yeah. I mean, Eric Weddell is potentially playing like a decent amount of snaps, like,

not just like jokingly or he might be out. Like, no, he's actually playing. And that's the. number one weakness of this defense is the spine is I talked talk about Troy Reeder before but honestly he's such a detriment to their whole defense and then also the interior the safeties are supposed to clean that up and now it's like oh my god we're playing we're potentially playing eric wettles snaps i know i think it's nick scott and burgess are going to start but next got and burgess and but then ernest jones who never did i think at the beginning of the year that

ernest jones jones such a huge part of this team but when you have their backup linebackers in that's something you can take advantage of. I know Bramsie didn't play the last time and these two teams played, but when you have that middle of the defense, because here's the thing, Kyler, you go back and watch just multiple games from him. He was right up there with like Justin Herbert this year

in holy shit throws that he made. He can make five, six holy shit plays over the course of a game. And when you're playing with backup safeties, and it's not even just backup safeties, think about how many times the Rams will throw 60Bs on the field. field, how deep their personnel can go at those spots because they only want one linebacker out there.

It just starts to diminish the different sorts of packages of secondary players you can put on the field together. So that's my thing. The one thing, I'm curious what you think about this. When I went back and I watched that game earlier this week, the Rams are running a lot of five-man fronts with one off-ball linebacker, no matter what personnel group, the Cardinals, what do you think is the motivation behind that? They were doing it last week.

it's a 49ers too. They maybe have one more guy down there, but they're just, I think they're just trying to create just one-on-ones across the board, just like in a passing attack and just going like, hey, if it's zone, we'll just get penetration and you guys can't like get the edginess that we, that you want. But it's like, I don't know. I see that more as a passing down advantage than a rundown advantage. And also it puts a bad linebacker on an island over and over and over and over. because if they get to him, they climb to him, it's just right, they get north. And yeah, I don't know.

I think it's a lot of they just want guys at the line of skirmage mug it up. No double teams are created. You know, that's what really what it is. It's like, hey, you guys have five offensive linemen. Only one of them or two of them are plus players. Okay, we'll make you pop. You know, I think that's just the line of thinking that they have with it. But it's playing with fire.

It really is because you can get gashed as soon as that, if that linebacker gets sealed. I just, I feel like if I'm just trying to play out the game in my mind, the Rams will win if Stafford takes the layups, if they take advantage of how much depth the Cardinals like to get and some of those zone looks and just say, I'm just going to pepper it underneath. Like that's fine.

If you want to clear out on that side, I'm going to hit my outbreakers back underneath that for 12 yards, right? Let's like use cup in those intermediate areas and play action. Just play action, boots just, again, just try to spam the easy buttons. If they can do that and avoid big time mistakes, it just feels like they're a better team right now. I think so too.

Yeah, if this was a couple months ago, totally different story about just this iteration of the Cardinals since November, mid-November, it's just totally, you know, they lost their kind of pizzazz a little bit. And it's really going to be telling where Jaylon Ramsey gets aligned. I think that's going to be really clear to watch.

Correct. Yeah. And like, is he going to be the slot, how they utilize him? He doesn't really have a Debo Samuel. He has to trail around with. So kind of interesting, like, you know, especially the thing, the number one thing that the Cardinals probably get through the passing attack is going to Christian Kirk and Zach Ertz with a little bit of A.J. Green in there on the outside. So I'm curious how I think it's all going to come down to the interior. Like I, not just the line, but just that intermediate area of the field, that's five to 15 yard area of the defense, when the Rams are on defense and the Cardinals are an offense. But I just do think that the Rams are a little bit better of a team right now. I just could see this offense gashing them.

Like you said, they just spam the easy button. And can't you just see like naked? There's another naked coming. And also in the Cooper Cup when he steals the, you know, he steals and he leaks late. And they catch him and he gets north for 15 yards. Oh, and then there's a little shot playing. And there's a screen. I can just see him trying to get side to side.

So I really see the Rams having a nice, if they play how they should play, a nice advantage. All right. Before we get out of here, just a quick reminder, the teams that play today. We all, we have local shows covering all of those teams, local podcasts. If you don't listen to them, I highly recommend them if you're fans of those teams. Birds with Friends with our good friends, Shio Copadia, Zach Berman and Bull Wolf. If you're an Eagles fan and you listen to this show and you don't listen to birds of friends, that would surprise me.

But on the off chance that it happens, please go check it out. Highly recommend it. About Them Cowboys with John Moshoda, KT. Turner and our own producer, Kent Garrison, please go check out that show, which I've been on multiple times. Here's The Catch, our Niners podcast with David Lombardi and Matt Barrow's. And Times Hours, our Chiefs podcast, with my very good friend, Nate Taylor, Seth Kaiser, and Joshua Brisco. So, again, if you're a fan of any of those teams, or if you're not, if you just want to hear more about those teams, highly recommend you guys go and check those out. We will be back tomorrow nights with a recap of the Monday night show.

But in the meantime, please send in your mailbag questions for this week's mailbag with Mitchell Schwartz. The voicemail number is 872-22-22-7. 1773. Again, 872, 222-73. Email is athletic football show at gmail.com. Please send those in by 1 p.m. on Monday. Always appreciate you guys doing that. For now, that's all we got. Please rate and review the podcast. We're getting close to the end of the season. If you like the show all year, just go on Apple. Go on Spotify. Leave us five stars. Tell us why you like the show. If you don't like the show, don't do anything. Please subscribe. to The Athletic.com slash football show. We have so much great stuff. Just the detailed coverage, every single game, every single matchup. When I was

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if you're doing any sort of analysis of it, this is a perfect way to do it. We have this stuff for every single game. Sheel and Ted were doing X's and O's and analytics breakdowns of games individually. I mean, Ted did such a detailed breakdown about the Niners run game and what it might look like against the Cowboys. This is the type of stuff literally in every single game, every single matchup that you cannot get anywhere else. Anywhere else. It's what makes the athletic, the athletic. It's what makes us a little bit different. It's what makes a subscription worth

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