The Kevin Sheehan Show - A Cooley and Kevin Day

Episode Date: September 25, 2019

Kevin opens up with the Nats wild-card clinching day. Then it's Cooley calling in to do a lengthy conversation about the Redskins-Bears game, a look-ahead to the Giants game, and a few interesting thoughts on RPOs in college football. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. I'm here. Aaron's here. Chris Cooley's coming up. He'll join us on the show today. I just learned something from Aaron a little while ago. I mean, hell, I learned, you know, I learned a lot from Aaron every day. I learned just a few days ago that the mystics were in the WNBA playoffs. I didn't even know they were in the semifinals until we started giving their scores out on the race. show last week. But you just told me that they are minus 330 favorites over the Connecticut Sun. That is a massive favorite for a championship game or a championship series. It's best of five. I know that from my updates this morning. Are they that much better than Connecticut? I mean, they have the clear best player in the league. Elena Deladon. They have a good supporting cast. Christy Tolliver. Yeah, I mean, I don't know a whole lot about the Connecticut's son, but it seemed like when the Mistys were going in, they were the best team by far, and it shows them these odds. They've never won the title. This is their second straight

WNBA final. Their record during the regular season was 26 and 8. Connecticut was the second best team at 23 and 11. Just so you know, and I'm basically giving you this as I'm learning it, because I'm looking through their schedule right now. All right, they opened the season back in May. All right, they opened the season with Connecticut. They lost the opener to Connecticut. They then lost again at Connecticut. They then beat Connecticut at home.

By the way, 102 to 59 on June 29th. That would be a 43-point win for the Mystics over Connecticut. Their last meeting, that was their last meeting. They played Connecticut three times, and they are one and two against the sun. Are we going on too long for you on the mystics? Probably for most of you. But minus 3.30 is a massive favorite for a championship series. It would be the equivalent of the Super Bowl favorite being minus 17.

Something like that. Probably. Somewhere around there, somewhere between 15 and 17, is my guess. It's been a long time since I've seen a minus 3.30 favorite in something that resembles a championship series. Good luck to them, and I won't be watching. Sorry, not on Sunday. Game 1's at 3 o'clock. That would be a tough watch in the middle of an NFL Sunday in the middle of the Redskins game.

But I do like Elena Deladon. She can play, and Christy Tolliver is a terp. So we're rooting for her. How about the Nats? The Nats clinched a playoff. birth last night. A wild card playoff birth, courtesy of their sweep of Philadelphia and the doubleheader, and then the Cubs losing at Pittsburgh last night. Think about the season that they've had. It's been a wild one. They were 19 and 31 on May 23rd, so essentially four months later,

they are on a 69 and 38 run. That is 645 baseball since that 19 and 31 start, a start that by the way, had people talking about the manager being fired and about Max Scherzer being traded. I'm happy for Davey Martinez. He's obviously just gone through a recent health scare. They stuck with him. I mean, this is on Rizzo and the organization in terms of giving credit as much as it's on Dave Martinez in those players because the organization was staunch on this is going to turn out okay. And remember, there were a lot of injuries early in the season, too. And then they had the injury

to Scherzer who missed so many starts. But when you fall 12 games below 500 through 50, it's really hard to make the postseason. In fact, this is only the ninth time it's ever happened. Yesterday, by the way, just as an aside, in that first win in the afternoon, double-heder win over the Phillies, did you see their relief effort? Are you familiar with what happened after Joe Ross came out of the game? I mean, I was following, I was at work at the time, so I was kind of following it on game tracker and stuff, but Joe Ross gave him four innings,

and then it was Fetty for an inning, Rainy for an inning, Rodney for an inning, do little for an inning, and Hudson for an inning. Five relievers, five innings, no hits, no runs, no walks.

A no hitter. A perfect, no, a perfect game. There were no walks for five innings from their bullpen. That may be some of the, could tweet me and tell me something different, that probably was the best bullpen day of the season. I had Bob Carpenter on the radio show, and he agreed with that. The Nats are going to go into this postseason, by the way, considered to be, you know, a team capable of winning the whole thing. Some

people think they are the best matchup for the Dodgers because of their starting pitching rotation, which leads to this, a very intriguing final five games for the Nats, who are going to, more likely than not barring a Milwaukee collapse, all right, and a Cubs resurgence. They're going to play the Brewers in the wild card game. The interesting part of this is the Nats with five games left will have to, you would think, they would, you know, they're going to try to set it up to get their best pitcher to pitch that wild card game. However, there's a race right now and a battle for home field advantage.

So the question would be, what's more important? field advantage or teeing it up for your best pitcher to pitch in the wild card game. But then you take it a step further. Who is your best pitcher right now? Who do the Nats want to start that wild card game? The obvious answer most of the time would be Scherzer. But his ERA is 6.11 in his last three starts. So it could be Strasbourg who's really had almost his best season,

or Corbyn who's got like a 2.3 ER. in his last three or four starts, something like that. Is Milwaukee a heavy lefty lineup or not? The Dodgers are. Yeah, no, I think Milwaukee's fairly balanced. I think, I mean, Davey had indicated yesterday that it would be Max pitching in that wild card game. I don't know if I would go that route, though, and not just for the numbers that you mentioned. Max Scherzer, if you go through it, he's not the best, I mean, he's not a disaster playoff pitcher.

He's not a great big game pitcher. It's not a great big game pitcher. I think part of it is because he gets, you know, he, he's such an emotional pitcher. He feeds off a motion to get in a good way that, I mean, you saw it yesterday. It was a big game. He gives up three runs in the first inning. Meanwhile, Strasbourg, who's just a machine who's basically emotionalists, he does pitch well in those spots. I would go with Strasbourg.

Granted, I mean, here's the thing. If you don't, you know, if you pitch Strasbourg in the Wildcourt game, then he's not available for game one of the NLDS. The, you know, the goal isn't to get to the NLDS. the goal is to make it farther. At least the NLCS for the first time. You can't make it further without getting to the NLDS, which means you've got to win one game, which by the way is going to be very exciting.

But here's the thing. Right now, Max is scheduled to pitch the season finale against Cleveland. If you need that win to get home field, they're not, they've already indicated they're not going to care about it. So they'll pitch somebody else and give up home field to make sure that Scher pitches against Milwaukee. Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what they're going to do. I didn't know that.

by the way, Bob Carpenter didn't have an answer on that this morning either. He said that Davey's giving... He didn't... I think his exact words were Max lines up for that start. For the wild card start. Okay, he doesn't line up based on right now what they've got written down as, or what at least many websites are projecting as normal rotation, which would be Sanchez today, Strasbourg Thursday,

both on Friday, Corbyn Saturday, and Max on Sunday. Here's what, I think this was in the pregame press conference, or maybe the between games somewhere around there. Dave Martinez, this is from Jesse Doherty. Dave Martinez didn't definitively name Max Scherzer as Wild Card Game starter, but he got very close. Quote, if you look at the schedule right now, that's Max's Day, and he's one of the best.

Well, okay, well, but it's not Max's Day. Orden to Dave Martius. Is he saying that's Max's Day as in, that's his kind of a day? a wild card game because it doesn't set up in terms of if you keep the normal rotation. I mean, he said if you look at the schedule. Max just pitched last night. If he's pitching a normal rotation, he would pitch the season finale against Cleveland on Sunday at home. I agree with you, but Martinez apparently thinks that it lines.

I just think it'll be like if they get to the Sunday game. I would pitch Strasbourg in the wild card. It would be really interesting to see if they had to win that game to get home field advantage, if they would go with someone else and give up potentially home field advantage to get Max to pitch in Milwaukee. By the way, home field advantage comes with obviously last opportunity to bat in a game, and with their bullpen, that may be something they want. You know, is one last opportunity in the bottom of the ninth in case they give up the lead in the top of the ninth with somebody? Right.

The other interesting thing, just about the last week or so, a week and a half, is Doolittle, is, really not the closer right now. He is going to be lefty, lefty, or for an inning here or there. He may close a game, but it's not clearly etched in stone that he's going to be the playoff closer. In fact, I think we're starting to see signs that it'll be Hudson. Last night, Harper hit a home runoff, Hunter Strickland. Oh, that was the most, as soon as he came up to bat, I would have put any amount of

money on him hitting a home run there. Clutch. By the way, he's... Well, hold on. He's clutch when it... Here's the thing. There are runners on base? he wouldn't have hit that home run.

He's big when it seems big. It was a big matchup last night because of what happened in 2014. For five years ago? I know, but people anticipated it. And I've just found maybe I'm wrong and maybe the numbers would not, you know, back me up on this. I've just found over the years that if Harper's up in a big spot, it turns out well more often than not. By the way, he's ending up having a really decent season. Just hit his 34th home run last night.

He's got 109 RBI's. The batting average has come up. The un-based percentage has come up. It's not his best season, but he's not the reason for them not making the postseason. His contract's not the reason for them not making the postseason. They've had a lot of injuries on that team. They are really probably one of the most disappointing teams of the 2019 season. All right.

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All right, let's bring in Chris Cooley. We'll talk about what happened Monday night. Look forward to Sunday against the Giants and maybe even some bigger picture stuff. Big takeaways from the Monday night loss were. They started way down, and it's such a huge problem for them to give up consecutive scoring drives on defense. The offense didn't help you in the first half, and we've been saying that. You and I collectively that the offense hasn't been necessarily the reason you lose didn't help in this game, especially in the first half. Honestly, a big takeaway, and I don't know how much positive you want to take out of O and

3, is they could have laid down. The Bears at 28-0 were probably going to win that game. But I think there was a pretty good definition of at least how do you want to lose. Do you want to quit right now or do you want to work? And at least I saw the team work and try to grind themselves back into a game. They got closer than it actually looked. You know, if Case Keenham doesn't fumble on that fourth and one, you can go ahead and score. You make it a game at that point with about six minutes left.

But I think it was frustrating. And I think the team's going to be frustrated from it and the coaching staff. Obviously, everyone understands where they're at right now and what they have over the next few weeks. So that was a game, I think, that they really needed to try to find a way to win. You know, I will, let's start, you know, where you just mentioned with just a little bit of the positive. I mean, personally, I'm not going to be, I'm not going, you know, doing backflips over the fact that they didn't quit. But I think one of the underrated things about that game Monday night, and I heard a lot of people talking about, oh, it was garbage points, garbage yards, that's bullshit.

They had a chance with eight minutes, seven minutes to go in that game to make the Bears legitimate. ultimately sweat. They were carving Chicago up, and it was a shame that, you know, Case Keenham thought he was on the goal line or just didn't know the rule, because if they were to have scored there, this is, it's 2822, and the bears are potentially reeling at that point. I mean, we could have witnessed one of the, I mean, I don't think it's funny because everybody has their own impression, and you got to halftime, and you just, you're killing them on Twitter and I was and others were and it was an awful, you know, first half. But, you know, they were there. They had a legitimate chance. Now, you can say, well, if they pick up the first

down, you know, you're just one more play away from Case Keenham throwing another interception. Or if the bears had gotten it back 2822, they would have taken that next drive much more seriously and they would have driven it down their throats. Whatever. The bottom line is, they were really, really on the verge of making it a one-score game and making the bear's sweat. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. And maybe the Bears would have made adjustments at that point and went back to their up-tempo offense that it wasn't really even up-tempo. It was really just get to the line so the coach could call the play into the quarterback's

helmet with 20 seconds left. That's all it was. And we never adjusted that. But maybe they went back to some of that stuff. you know, you can look at it and say even without that it was hard stopping them. They had a drive right before the Case Keenham fumbled that they walked all the way

down the field and then Josh Norman got an interception right at the goal line. So you know, it wasn't like you were just stopping them defensively. So there was that as well. But all that said, look, I'd much rather play in a 28, 22 football game any day of the week

and have myself a chance who the hell knows what's going to happen because maybe the center snaps it when Trubitsky's not looking and we get a lucky one. You never know. You're within a score. Sometimes things happen. So they fought themselves back into a game.

And to be honest, I watched that team fight. I got to give them credit for that. It wasn't pretty. It was a bad start defensively. There's big time problems. But I did watch a team fight. And there's something to be said for that. And even if it's something to be said moving into the future and with a lot of the guys

that are going to be on the team next year, the team that won't lay down, at least early. Yeah, I mean, let's also keep in mind this is, you know, a big part of this group is the group that absolutely laid down at the end of last year. They were trailing a game 40 to nothing early in the third quarter against a bad football team. They didn't have any prayer in several of their games down the stretch. With that said, I actually thought the best game they played all year in terms of the limitations was the loss at Tennessee. I thought they showed a ton of fight in that one. But real quickly, back to that last drive. And I know some people are saying, why, you know, I'm going to talk about with you what I want to talk about here.

We'll get to the negative here. Do you think that this, like, you're really focused on this second half and them, you know, deciding to really continue to give it, you know, effort and stick together? Jay said this the other day. Do you think this is a team that, at least in that locker room, is still together? or is it fraying? No, I don't think there's anything fraying on this team. And I've been around this team more than I've been around any team since I've been out of playing.

And so it's not like I've known inherently every team. But I will say that you look around the locker room, you can find a lot of guys that you go, I'll keep building the team with this kind of guy. I think there's good attitude in there. I don't think there's any negatives. I don't think there's any internal struggles with players. So, yeah, they're a team that's still together.

It's just, you know, they have a big challenge ahead of them. I mean, there's adversity, and then there's a little bit more. Reality. Then there's reality with what's pending, and then there's the looming reality of what happens if you get to 0-0-0-0-6 and what's going to happen at the end of the year, and players are smart, and they understand all of that stuff. So to stay together will be more of a challenge later in this season, unless they get a couple wins, which is any battle, it'll be more of a challenge. I want to ask you one other thing about the second half.

I saw a team that got back to what I'm sure you were recommending, which was more quick game, more get it out quickly. That's a good strategy to combat number 52. Their strategy in the first half was not very good against Kalila Mack. And that they were carving up a team that may have relaxed psychologically, but they weren't in prevent either. And they were showing what we've seen at times in the first two games, the ability to move the football a little bit. It didn't happen in the first half because of all the turnovers and the inability to account for, you know, one of the two or three best players in the entire NFL. But did you see, you know, I mean, did you, Chicago may have let down mentally, coolly, but the offense really did perform in the second half with the exception of the two

turnovers, which are big deals. And the last one was just silly. But what did you see offensively as they were, you know, moving up and down the field on three different occasions? Well, I thought a couple of things. One, the attention to urgency. As they started going, no huddle, and they started speeding things up, it started getting the bears out of rhythm and off-tempo.

Because I thought early in that game, the bears were jumping the snap count. The bears were pretty sure of what some of the concepts we had and how to play those concepts. And so as they got into some of the spread-out stuff and no-huddle stuff, I think that you got the bears a little bit out of rhythm defensively. I think that the running game is better right now when run through Chris Thompson. And it's not because I'm saying to you that Chris Thompson's a better runner than Adrian Peterson, but I just think some of the run concepts where you're trying to get to the edge

and you're a little bit more spread out are much more effective, and Chris has been a pretty good runner. So, you know, you look at what you did offensively, and then getting the ball to Terry more. Terry had, like, one target in the first half. Terry had a big second half. So you get the ball to Terry more, and you get the ball to Chris Thompson more,

and you spread it out and you go a little bit more up-tempo, and that's how you beat a bear's defense. I thought the plan was interesting in the first half the ball game. You know, I know you expect to be able to run the ball, or you want to try to run the ball, but it just wasn't to be. So I think there was, it wasn't, it was urgency, there was an offensive group that didn't quit, but I also think the plan adapted to what it had to be.

And, you know, maybe you wanted to start with that. Yeah, I think the frustrating thing for me is, as I, you know, started to realize in the second half, you know, at 2815 when they got the ball back after I think maybe the only three and out of the game defensively against the Bears was, You know, I want Chris Thompson in the game. I don't want to see Adrian Peterson in this game, whether they're throwing the ball to Thompson, whether they're going to run draws or use him as a runner, which they did on that first down, you know, eight-yard gain and they came back to him on second down. I just thought their best opportunity was to do what they had been doing.

I did not want to see Adrian Peterson. Adrian Peterson was in on that drive to start that drive. And I remember thinking to my, I think I tweeted it out, more Thompson, get Peterson out. Like, you're not, they threw a ball to Peterson for like, you know, it was like a minus, you know, a minus play to start that last drive that ended up in fumble. I wonder if. Yeah, it was a screencast. Yeah, I wonder if Jay just felt like, you know, I guess I got to get Adrian in the game. I don't know how he felt, but I would say that that's been fairly consistent to what most of their game plans over.

the past few years have started out and looked like with some of their inside gap runs between the tackle runs and you've developed some of the stuff off of that but yeah you think it was a tough spot against that defense to do some of those things what i mean and it was like it was here's the other thing is that i went back and watch this game i mean let's just go through the first series of plays kevin this is another thing you know the first series of plays is big for them they have two mistakes on the first run play that they get no yards vernon davis covers us up Jeremy Sprinkle on the second play and they get a penalty. We're talking about the scripted first 15.

Right. All right. And the third play is second and ten and Jeremy Sprinkle drops one down the middle of the field. And then Kayskeem throws a pick six on a ball that sails at Trey Quinn. And so you started out on the first five plays in such a big hole or the first four plays, putting your offense in a big hole with mistakes. And I don't know, man.

It's really tough to battle back. I do think the Bears settled when we got into the second half. When I watched that team, I think they pretty much said, you're not scoring 28 on us. So we could really take a knee right here if we wanted to, every down, and we'll play enough defense that you won't get 28. Right. So back to the first half,

what didn't they do against Khalil Mack and what should they have done? I just think you have to give him more to think about. And by more to think about, I don't mean Vernon Davis SIFT protection, protecting on a play action pass. I mean, you got to get him off his spot. You got to get him moving. So like you mentioned, quick game's a big thing. They didn't screen the Bears at all in the first half. And you can screen in so many ways that it's not like fly sweep motion, reverse motion, big handoff, and then throw the ball to the back, like a patented new NFL screen.

And you can get some of those alley screens to his direction. And you can get some of those things where he's two steps and then he's got a turn and run. and he doesn't just all of a sudden get this rhythm. I don't think the count was good enough in the first half of that ball game. I think that there's so many things that you can control in the 40 seconds as you go up to the ball that are yours to control. And to me, the bears were firing off the line, so much so that three or four times they were off the second the ball was snapped.

So when they know your count, you've got to make those adjustments. I think that's a problem. I think you had to run at him more. I think you had to attack him more in the run game. and the back can cut it back behind that. But CP and I've talked about this, and we talked about it all the time when I was playing, and we were playing together,

and it was like, you have a great defense event, we're going to run at him, and C.P. would just say, hey, look, just make sure he doesn't get inside. Okay, I'll cut it back. Whatever you do, still let him get inside. Or, hey, go hard outside, and I'll bounce it. But just take one side of him,

and I'll know that you're going to take that side of him. Like, to me, you have to try to run at Calil Mac a little bit more. And I'm not saying you can't double team him with two tight ends at the point, but they never ran at him. So I think that there's things that you do in those instances. They also never tossed at him, where you're trying to crack him from the other side.

They never tried to get outside of him in the run game. In the first half, I'm confident that not one run play was designed to get outside of the tackle box. So you never got him to run. Clinton said yesterday on the radio show that Adrian missed a bunch of things, that there were opportunities there that he just missed. Yeah, I didn't think you ran the ball exceptionally well.

I think maybe predetermined a couple of the cuts and bounced a couple of things that he definitely couldn't bounce. But at the same time, when you're getting five carries and a half, I'm just not sure how Beck sets up and gets a show for a game. I thought, by the way, Trevathan, Danny Trevathin, was incredible in that game, too. I mean, they have a lot of defensive talent. and, you know, there's been a lot of talk of Roquan Smith and Leonard Floyd. I thought 59 was really good. I mean, obviously, Mac is the major difference maker.

Their defense is good, isn't it? It is good, but it's smart, too. How about the delayed blitz? Oh, yeah, by him. He's going to convince Sheriff that he's checking the back, that he's hug-rushing the back. And it's crazy because they're already men covering the back. If lineman had that sense, like, you're clearly not going to cover the back. There's a backer over the back right there.

But he kind of turns and hesitates and sheriff goes back down to the center. But that's smart, Kevin, because you have watched as a defensive coordinator or a linebacker's coach or whoever it is, that as soon as that delayed blitz occurs, Sheriff will go hard down and help the center. You've seen it. He's going to sort protect. He's going to sort it. As soon as his sort isn't coming, he's going to go back down to the center. And they said, watch, we'll get him with this one.

We will look so smart. And they did. I mean, they do things in the blitz game with those backers. They're fast, they're athletic. It's a fun defense to watch. I watched them on film for a couple games. They're aggressive, and then they're a lot of fun to watch. Yeah, they are.

By the way, just more on the Bears. Tribisky's really inaccurate, isn't he? As soon as he has to move, he cannot find an open receiver. Yeah, I thought he was inaccurate a lot. But if you give him five seconds, and you let him throw inside of 10 to 15 yards, he's pretty good. All right, let's talk about the team. Who played well on offense and who didn't?

I thought Terry McClureen played really well offensively. I thought he was really impressive. I thought Paul Richardson did a pretty good job on offense. It's crazy because if you take away two fumbles and three interceptions, in case did make some big throws in that game, but you couldn't afford that in any way. But it wasn't, I don't think anything was great offensively. Quinn was good. Ran some really good routes.

That tray was pretty effective in the game. You already mentioned Thompson, who, by the way, I think has looked really good in all three games. He looks truly healthy and back to being a guy that's really difficult once he has the ball in his hands to deal with. Yeah, but how many plays did Thompson

playing that ballgame? Like how many touches? He didn't have enough touches. Everybody had like eight touches, something like that? played 40 snaps in the game. But yeah, the touches weren't enough. He had seven runs and he had five targets. So, you know, 12 opportunities. Yeah, I think moving forward that the way this offense needs to operate is probably

through Chris Thompson quite a bit more. And I don't think at O and 3, you can protect him. I just don't think that you can say, look, this guy, if he ends up playing too much, you're getting too many carries. We're worried that he's going to be injured. You've got to go win some games, right? now. And I really do think that he's given your best opportunity to get more yards offensively. I love Adrian. But I think that Chris is going to give you your best opportunity at this point

to get the most possible yards. That's the way it seems to me, too, watching it. And, you know, I bet therein lies some of the issues of frustration for Jay. Obviously, you know, Geis was the plan. His choice. I'm sorry? It's his choice who gets touches. Yeah, it should be. So there's no frustration. There should be no frustration. Adrian's active. If you get into a second half of a ballgame where you're up a couple of scores or seven or whatever it is and you want to start going to some of your gap scheme runs and go back to it.

I think that gap scheme run stuff is a secondary issue right now. I think it's a secondary game plan for them. It wouldn't be for me. Yeah, because it doesn't even work that well. Coolie's joining us on the podcast. Offensively, who had a rough night? You know, Case obviously had a rough night. I think Morgan had a rough night, giving up a couple pressures, you know.

I think the offensive line in general did. But collectively, it just wasn't good enough. I don't know if you'd just single anyone out and say, this guy just stunk. Anyone can look at the quarterback. That's an easy thing to do, and he knows. Yeah. All right. Defensively, what stood out to you?

Who played well? Who didn't? So what stood out to me defensively was they never adjusted. the first half of that ballgame in the way that I would have wanted to adjust. And I watched a game that you watch Tribisky, a quarterback who everybody knows is struggling. Okay, we all know he is overwhelmed in the first two games. And so they come out and they get right to the line of scrimmage. And then they dummy cadence, which means they're going to go black 80 hot, hot.

And we're going to look at, we're going to see our defense in front of them. Okay. And then you're there and you got up until 20 seconds for that coach to go, okay, Mitch. We have a man-to-man coverage. Now let's check into display. You can look here, you can look here. And we just stood there. And it's crazy because defenses will flip and adjust coverages

based on strength of formation. So if you had three receivers to one side and one to the other or two depends on where the back is, you'll be in a certain coverage. If they flip it all of a sudden and now you go motion, Now sometimes we have a check with me altered coverage. But the bears were really smart with this. They really didn't flip the formation. Formation.

They just flipped the formation within and keeping the strength. So they kept the coverage that the Redskins had initially called. I thought after the first drive, you got to say, look, just show man hard. Let him do their dummy check. And when he gets into his cadence, rotate to zone. Don't give him what he knows you're going to. going to play. You can't show him and then play it. It's too easy for

quarterbacks. And by the way, if you come up and show, man, and I'm a tight end, and we check into some route, and you're standing there, we're dummy cadencing it, I'm like, how am I going to beat this? Okay, where to now, how do I want to create? I got like five seconds, ten seconds to think about. I got time to consider how I want to win because I know the coverage. Yeah, that was something that was noticeable, because you see that throughout the league. You know, you see, you know, for someone out there that's, most of you really followed coolly in that.

But just think about these teams that get right to the line of scrimmage. They hit you with the hard count to try to make you show. And once they do that, then they check into a play or they keep the same play, but they assume that they know the defense you're going to play. But in a lot of games, when you're watching that, you then see the defense start to communicate and switch their defense. Maybe they're dummying. the switch, and maybe they're going to stick with the same thing, but there was like no activity

after the Bears would, you know, sort of hard count, dummy count, and wait for the Redskins to respond. No, and you got to, and then there's a game that continues to go on within the game, and, you know, if we start dummying, then they're going to start going on first down. But if you're not even playing the game, it's like letting Steph Curry shoot threes at the top of the key when he's hitting him. Like, go play hard defense or he's going to keep making the shot

that you're giving him. I mean, make the change. If he's missing 10 in a row. And make him give up the ball and let somebody else shoot it. I mean, it's like getting beat, picking roll 25 times and not making an adjustment. Like, hey, what are they

going to do? Well, they're going to pick and roll, but we just have to play it better this time. How about play a different this time? How about play it different? They got your number on Oh, come on, man. It's a, come on, it's old school. You just got to execute. You just got to play harder.

It's like hitting your driver on every hole, even though you pull your driver every time. Like, it's time to pull out the three iron, bro. It is just time to pull out the three iron. But, I mean, look, I don't know exactly what the game plans are and how they're going into these games. But I just thought the Bears got matchups they wanted. And I thought that there was some more adjustments in that first half that I would have, I would have tried to make it, at least make it harder on them. And I just think this all the time because one of my favorites,

one of the things I remember the most from Sean McVeigh was he'd come back after a game when he was the O.C. And he'd go, I just, I knew that, I knew that D.C. I had such a good feel for him after three drives. I knew him. And it's like, you can't let them know you. There's coaching such a big deal because it's, you can't put your players in a position where they're not in the best situations to win.

Again, I don't want to put it on Menachie. I really don't. Because there could have been changes that could have been made that I don't know. There could have been calls that they missed. It could have been checked they missed. I really don't know exactly what those were. But to me, it just didn't seem like there was adjustments being made. One thing I just want to make sure I understood because you said, so when you start to adjust after that first hard count defensively,

then maybe they'll just go on that first count, right? Sure. And that's what you're saying, that sometimes that's the counter to you countering. Yeah, but then you have to continue to counter. You have to continue to play the game. Right. The game with the chest match. You have to keep.

Right. I mean, you can't just let them have option number one every time. Did Sweat impress you at all with the sack with a better performance? Yeah, I did like Sweat. I thought Sweat was pretty good in that ballgame. I was impressed with him, for sure. I thought Ionitis had his best game. He was dominant at times.

He was doing a very good job getting in the backfield, creating some havoc, in the run game as well. That D-line is, pain is good. Alan's going to continue to be good. I mean, they just have to collectively play as a whole. Okay, so, you know, we're sitting here on Wednesday. Nothing's happened. Nothing's going to happen with respect to coaches.

And I'm not going to get into with you whether or not you think it'll happen after Sunday. if they were to lose or not, because I know you're going to avoid that question, which is fine. I don't think it'll happen after Sunday if they lose to the Giants. Okay, so you just answer that. It would be the Giants at their point. I'm not going to avoid the question. I don't think it'll happen. Okay. Would you consider more seriously going into Sunday giving Dwayne Haskins his first opportunity? because clearly it hasn't, I don't think it's been considered seriously at all. I would seriously consider going into Sunday with packages for Dwayne Haskins.

What kind of packages? Like a series where you're running your normal offense or something that's different than your normal offense? Look, everybody's continuing to say that Dwayne's not ready yet. But the only way to get Dwayne ready is to tell him you believe in him and give him some stuff and let him go out there and work. And if you really didn't believe he's ready, he's ready for something. Look, he's ready for something. He's ready for 30 plays. You know, you can limit what you're doing offensively.

You can take first-down concepts. Let's just say you had 20 first-down drop-back concepts. Take it to five and change them in three different, cut them in three different formations. And now you have 15 instead of 20. And let's say you have a few different play-actions. Let's say you have 10 first-down play-action concepts. Take it to three and take them out of different formations. sometimes that works anyways.

That's what the Rams do. Rams run like nine total plays in the game. It's crazy. The Chiefs do the same thing. The Chiefs run four verticals 17 times in a game, and none of them are out of the formation. It's great. So you just cut your concepts,

and then you can't tell me that he's not ready. Once you put him in, though, he's in. And so if you are protecting him, you just can't bench him. in my opinion. But if you use him the way you just described, you're not starting him. You're not committing to him. You're not, you're not dealing some sort of massive confidence blow by benching him.

You're suggesting that they have him in for a series or two or three, you know, or, you know, with a more limited package in the game. The problem with that, of course, is that. You just do understand it. Once he has one touchdown passes, like, why isn't it? be in. All right. True. True. By the way, what you just described that the Chiefs and the Rams do, isn't that also similar to what Gibbs did, that he had fewer, that he ran the same play from like 15 different formations and motions? It's exactly what Gibbs did. And it's funny because

I think I've said this, but Sean and I met and talked to sometime last year. And the first thing he wanted to know is what was Gibbs doing with all the formations? shifts. I mean, the things you truly control are your formation, your snap count, and your tempo. That's what you have full control over. I think that it's paramount. You know, on the Haskins thing, too, I mean, Jay, in short order, figured out a game plan for Josh Johnson, who had arrived a week earlier. And you know what?

it wasn't ineffective. They functioned. I know, but it wasn't incredible. There were plays that Josh made that were not within the play. I understand that. He did a heck of a job at times, but there were plays that he made that you're not always going to get away with. I understand that.

Look, I think one of the things that is in Jay's mind right now is that they've played two good defenses in one truly elite defense in the NFL. and they're not playing that on Sunday. And he still thinks that they can be competitive at 0 and 3, that they can still show something and show some life here. And I'm sure that Dan and Bruce don't want to bail on a season that they basically claimed they were close on going in. And they see the Giants is a bit of a lemon here,

like an opportunity to get their first win and look really good offensively doing it. Do you agree with that? If I were Jay, I would think that I could have a great game against this giant defense. I would think that I can tear them up a little bit. I got all my guys healthy. I'm getting a good feel for some of these young receivers, cases getting a better feel offensively for what we're trying to do.

The pass rush isn't going to be one of three best past rushes in the league, which is essentially almost what you face for three weeks. So, yeah, I would think I can score a bunch of points. If I were Jay, I'm also sitting there thinking, could we please hold them to less than 20? please could we hold them to less than 20? Because that's going to be another big part of this game. And it's a little bit, I think there's some politics behind this game as well. You know, if Daniel Jones goes out there and tears it up,

and they score 34 against us, you know everyone's going to be banging the Dwayne-Haskins drum so hard. You've got to feel like you've got to stop the guy. Yeah, that is, that's one angle I haven't thought of. I've obviously thought about. it's not true. It's not real. You shouldn't think of it that way. They're different people at different situations. You shouldn't do that, but it will happen. But let me finish the thought because I think you just, you just said something that's really interesting that I hadn't thought of. Clearly,

we've all thought about the Daniel Jones-Haskins thing and the Redskins, the reports that several in the organization were big fans of Jones even more so than they were of Haskins. But what you just said is that, you know, to almost prove, and it's the second start for Jones. I mean, it's ridiculous to get carried away at this point. But just to quiet the Daniel Jones Hall of Fame bandwagon, the Redskins are the first team since his first game with the opportunity to do that,

and it would be in their best interest to do it, not just to win the game, but to make sure that they don't come out of that game with people saying, oh my God, you guys got the wrong guy and they got the right guy. And by the way, what I heard over and over again, you know, on Sunday when Jones was lighting it up and bringing them back in Tampa is the Redskins screwed up. No, they didn't. They didn't have a chance to draft him.

He got picked it six. But that's- Can you imagine if the Redskins traded like next year's first and a second and moved up to six and took Jones or five and took Jones? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I know. I know it would have been nuts. But, you know, a lot of the reporting since draft night,

when the media and fans killed the Giants and killed Dave Gettleman for taking them. A lot of the reporting since has been that NFL people, like scouts and, you know, GMs on the condition of anonymity, they love Jones. And they thought that Jones would not have made it to 17. Is that where the Giants took their defensive end? Yeah, I think it was 17. Yeah, so that weather was in there. Denver would have been the wild card.

would have been the wild card. A lot of people think the Redskins would have been the wild card at 15, and maybe even Pittsburgh before they traded. Right? Didn't they trade out of that? I forget how that worked on draft night. Pittsburgh traded up to get Denver's pick and they took Kevin Bush. That's right. That's right. They took Bush. Exactly. Who, by the way, I know you didn't love, he's looked pretty good at times. He's struggling right now. I'm sorry? He's struggling, as is that Pittsburgh defense. Actually, the Pittsburgh defense got, I watched most of that game because I had Pittsburgh plus the points. I did too. I watched the game.

I didn't have. I know. I actually thought that they were super aggressive and effective early, but what's really just amazing, and I said this on Monday, is just how Mike and Kyle can figure out how to run the football against almost anybody. It's really impressive. It's not amazing. it's the scheme that gets it done. I understand that, but why doesn't everybody do the same thing? Because apparently everybody doesn't believe that the zone run scheme is the best scheme in football.

But that's another story. That's another story. Rams do it. Yeah. But, I mean, look, I was part of the same run scheme with Gibbs. It was a little different, but it was still zone run. And we kept it with Zorn. And there were times we ran the ball really well, especially the first year with Zorn.

Yeah. Even though we were limited formationally and limited with what we were doing, and we got banged up with the offensive line, we still ran the ball okay. Right. Josh Norman is struggling. That's the understatement of the season so far, right? Yeah, they're going after Josh right now. I think a lot of people are really challenging him.

And almost like you just talked about, I was joking around with when you don't hit the driver really well. You got to go to the three iron, man. Like, Josh is playing press bail so many times, and he's getting beaten press bail. Like, just press or play off or do something different. Like, you've got to adapt here. I think Josh Norman's a good player. I really do. I think that he's, like, if you get, if he gets run by, it's hard for him to recover.

But I don't think he's a bad player, man. I just can't buy that. What are the giants? But struggling, struggling is well put. How much of the Giants have you watched so far? No, no, I was going to go watch Daniel Jones in that game today. But I watched all of our game, and I spent the weekend watching the Chiefs and the Rams and the Ravens and some of these innovative offenses.

I haven't watched, well, I haven't watched the Giants because I didn't care about Eli Manning yet. So I'm going to watch Daniel Jones. Well, you liked Jones. and by the way you liked Minshu and I gave you credit for that you brought up minshu at some point and said that wouldn't be a bad mid-round pick if they haven't drafted a quarterback yet you know what I liked about minchu and what I like about any college quarterback that does what he does is you throw it

4,000 times in college like in a Mike Leach offense and at least you get a good feel for what coverages you're seeing and what you're looking at at the back end and a lot of different concepts and there's something to be said for experience, and he certainly has it. What did you sort of learn, or what were your takeaways? You said you were watching the Chiefs and the Ravens and some of the innovative offenses? All right. The first thing I really love when I watched the Chiefs and the Rams before the obvious.

They screen a ton. Both of those teams have at least 10 screens in every ball. game. The Chiefs as well. So as much as they want to throw vertical, they screen a ton. The Chiefs RPO almost every single run. And they have so many varieties of RPO, which I was so impressed with, and it could be to the single side as well, which is what the Redskins got on three different occasions to Paul Richardson. It's like a variation that we hadn't seen from the Redskins that the Chiefs have been doing. But they're so good in screening an RPO game. they run the ball effectively when they need to run the ball,

and everything is gun, and everything's gun run, and almost everything for the chiefs is some form of zone type of run. And then finally, the passing concepts are not overly complicated, and there's not a ton of complexity to them. But they run four vert in every single way you could possibly see it. Like they run four verticals, four seam routes in some variation, with those are two backs in the backfield and fly sweep, and one of the backs will become a theme,

and the other fly sweeper will become a theme. And they create different levels to do it. It's really, really cool. It's fascinating. It's college-like. And that's kind of Andy Reed's M.O. is really innovative, and he'll go and he'll talk to college coaches

and he'll ask them how they're doing it. So I was impressed with that. When I've watched the Rams, if they like a play, they just keep running it. They will keep running that play. a third downplay that they ran in the first two weeks at least eight times and they got I think seven of eight on the same concept it's a high low concept with three it's a deep medium low with three guys and they just run it and run it and run it different formations

different looks to get to it you're like how does no one stop this but there are options um they screen a lot especially in second long and and both these teams do this they they'll go empty sets more and they'll throw the alley screen to the mid receiver of the three. If you bring five of six in the box, they just throw the screen. They just immediately check to it. They'll take eight yards. It's great. Stealing. So they just do simple things. Then the last thing, when you watch the Chiefs, dude, like Patrick Mahomes is just unbelievable. Mahomes is unreal right now. You said something to me the other day about the Chiefs. You said that you don't even know if they have a run call in their playbook that the only runs are off of RPO's.

Do you really think that's true? They've got to have a short yardage, right? They're all run calls. Yeah, no, they go down on the goal line and they go RPO. So you don't think they have just an actual running play in the playbook other than as an option to pass? Yes, they certainly do have running plays. their playbook. But they don't call them often. Because they believe in Mahomes and they believe in

what they see and they say, hey, look, if we have an easy five-yard throw, it's way easier than a five-yard run. Getting a five-yard throw to a receiver who has leverage is a lot easier than getting a five-yard run. Thus creating real balance. And by the way, you know the other good thing about the RPO? It's play action because your line is blocking real run. They're really, blocking run. Right. So it's effectively putting the defense into thinking run, which is what play action does. Exactly what it is. So they just, I don't know. I live through two games. I think almost every run had some RPO off of it. And even it, honestly, you never know for sure, right? But even if it is not RPO, their receivers are running a bubble or running slants on the backside of it. It could be

call it and run it and then just call slants on the backside of it. And no, you're not going to throw them. Oh, one more thing. I wrote this down. If you want to be good, if you want to run the ball and have the effect that Sean McGrath is having as a Rams offense, your receivers all have to block their guts out. Their receivers are great blockers. So important. Yeah, definitely. What did you see with the Ravens just out of curiosity? That Lamar Jackson he gets away with more than he should get away with, man. He throws balls rolling right across the field that end up getting caught. He throws balls into double coverage that he ends up making plays on.

It's amazing. I expected them to be like this winged tee high school offense. I think a lot of people did, like just commitment to read option and all of the stuff. And they jump back and they throw the ball. Mark Andrews is really good. I like Mark Andrews a lot. And all their tight ends are good. and they essentially act as the receivers in the run game.

And Lamar Jackson can make plays, dude. That's the thing about this kid. He's not a great anticipator at this point. I don't know if he'll ever be a great anticipator, but he is a great second and third effort type of player. And if he's got a run, you don't want the ball in anybody else's hands in the league. He is elite as a running quarterback.

And that's not a bad thing to say. You know, I would love to build an offense around him. love it. It's not my first choice in offense if I were just building it, but it would be so much fun to be Greg Roman in Baltimore. All right. I got to get to my coaching blunders, and you've got to go,

unless you want to stick around for the coaching blunders of the week. You enjoy this. Actually, this is my favorite thing, and I was going to just listen to the podcast, but if you want to do it, I'll just listen. Why don't you do it with me? Why don't we do this? hit the open for it, Aaron.

Bad play calls, clock management gaffs, missed opportunities. It's Coach Sheehan's blunders of the week. All right, Cooley's going to stick around for this. So there were a lot of coaching blunders over the weekend. By the way, you know, Gruden once again, at the end of the first half, he basically let 12 seconds roll off the clock before calling a timeout on defense. And I know it was 28 to nothing at the time. He was probably incredibly disappointed with the situation.

But they went down and got a field goal at the end of the half. And the bottom line is if he had called the time out correctly when he was on defense, he would have had another two snaps to try to get a touchdown in that situation. Also, it was way too early to go for two at 28 to 9. The right decision at 2815 to go for the two, but that's only because he went for the two and missed it the first time. At 2817, if they had just kicked the extra points on fourth and one before the fumbled snap on the quarterback sneak.

He could have kicked the field goal to make it 2820, and now it's a one possession potential, one possession game at that point. But here's what I really wanted to focus on, was everything that happened at Arrowhead with Jim Harbaugh and the Ravens. I don't know if you followed, you know, you said you watched a lot of tape of the Chiefs. I don't know how much of the going for the fourth downs and going for the two-pointers you followed during that game. But there was a lot of stuff going on in that game

that John Harbaugh was asked to respond to after the game. Are you familiar with everything that happened in the Baltimore game or not? Yeah, and when I say I watch a lot of tape, I didn't watch that game because that game hadn't occurred while I was watching tape. Right. So I think it's really interesting to go into a game saying, you know what? Analytics says we're going to need five more points in this game,

and so we've got to find ways to get them. Yeah. There's not, the going for two thing, there's so much context going for two as to, you know, what is your play? What is their defense down there? Do you really, like, it's less than 50-50, which is odd for a two-yard play, but it's not just a regular two-yard play because the goal line sitting right there, the back line really shortens the field. It makes it hard to get on a one-play deal. I don't like going for two early in ball games unless you have three, two or three things that you, know. And here's the other thing that's hard to know, no. Teams have different

defenses for different situations. You don't get a lot of looks of what they're going to do when you go for two. Say that again, that last part? You don't get a lot of looks on film of what other teams are going to do when you go for two. You know what I mean? You don't see a lot of two-point conversions. Why wouldn't you just consider your, you know, your fourth and goal from the two-yard line, you know, tape. I guess there's not a lot of that either. Well, you're two weeks in from the season. How many times have passed inside the five on film so far?

Right. Look, I think that they were just chasing it. And I don't think, I think their offense, as much as they've scored over the first couple weeks and as impactful as they've been, against Kansas City's defense, who, trust me, isn't bad, but it's not great. You don't believe that you can just maybe get an extra touchdown

at some point in that game? Yeah, so let me get to, just the two-point piece. The fourth-down stuff is, you know, by the way, you know how much I think of Harbaugh and the Ravens organization, and I love the fact that they went into that game, thinking aggressively and thinking about going it on fourth down. Harbaugh said after the game, this was not a possession game, all right? This game was not about possessions. This was about being aggressive and making the most out of each opportunity we had to try to score. You know, we couldn't give the ball back to this team, you know, by punting it, you know, on fourth down.

So they went for fourth down four times. I think they made three of the four on fourth downs, but it was the two-point conversion specifically that really got the most attention because there was one specific example that really for most people didn't make a lot of sense. And I'll get to that in a moment, but I want to start with this, because this is something that you and I have talked about many times in recent years. Right now, coaches who have been criticized so much in recent years for their clock management, for their score management, for all of the things that are more mathematically oriented,

they've been criticized so much that they've become easy marks for these analytic nerds. These guys are now preying on like the math insecurities of these coaches, and these coaches are buying all of it hook, line, and sinker, and they're turning it over to these people saying, okay, you tell us what to do based on the analytics. By the way, just as an aside, you know, analytics is like, makes it out to be, using that word makes me cringe a little bit, but it's the word that everybody's using,

but it makes it sound like you need a doctorate to figure it out. It's just simple math, you know? I mean, it's, like, statistics are statistics. There's advanced statistics that everybody wants to call analytics, and then there's all the two point and fourth down analytics. It's just simple math sometimes. But to your point, and this is the most important thing, in this sport, context is a big part of these decisions. It can't just be that you've gone back and you've figured out the percentage of two point makes

and the percentage of overtime wins and losses, and you've come up with some sort of mathematical advantage for either going for two or kicking the point after, and you just go with it. Context is so much a part of this thing. And this is one of the things I liked about Harbaugh. So after the game, he didn't really have any answers for some of the questions that were being answered,

but on Monday in his press conference, he really got into the detail, which to me speaks to his level of intelligence, If you're going to turn these decisions over to people, you better understand clearly what and why they're making these decisions. And he talked about how important context was on Monday, and that their plan was specific for this opponent in this stadium with these weather conditions against this defense. And he said there's so many factors that go into it that are mathematically calculated, but there's a lot of it that goes into it that is based, on the opponent in the situation in the context, which is why I'm going to get to this. So the most question move that Harbaugh made in this game was they were down 30 to 13,

they scored a touchdown, and they went for two at 30 to 19. Well, most of you would say, wait a minute, why did he do that? He should kick to get to 10 so that a touchdown and a field goal ties the game. At 11, now you're going to need a touchdown and a two-point convert. if you miss it, and 30 to 21, 30 to 20, you know, it's the same thing. Well, isn't for two-point analytics guys. They believe that overtime is bad. All right, this is a big premise of the two-point conversation. Overtime is bad. Trying to win a game in regulation is good. So at 30 to 19, to win the game in regulation, if you go for two, it's 30 to 21 if you convert it, and now you've got a chance

to win the game 31.30, down nine. And they all assume that overtime's like this 50-50 thing, and that two-point conversions are slightly better than 50-50, and basically the math comes out that when you're down 11, you should go for two. Now, one thing Harbaugh said that was incorrect, he said that there's a significant mathematical advantage based on what these people tell me.

You know, this analytics department that we now have in Baltimore, there's a significant advantage to going for two down, actually the advantage according to the chart that all these two-point analytics guys have created is really slight at 11. And then you bring in context, which by the way they had already missed their first two. You know, a lot of that should have been factored into it. But anyway, one of the tenants of going for two all the time, or going for, not all the time, going for two down 11 is you don't want overtime.

that you've got to win the game in regulation. And by the way, Harbaugh said that. In his press conference on Monday, he said, overtime, I'm paraphrasing here. Actually, I've got the quote. He said, I think you're talking about down 10. No, no, no, down 11.

Because they would have been down 10 if they kicked a field goal. No, they were down 30 to 13. They scored a touchdowns 30 to 19, and they went for two. I know. If they kicked a field goal, they would have been down 10. If they kicked a field goal, what are you talking about? Extra point. If they kick a point, you mean extra point?

You mean, that was the most wife comment ever. They scored a touchdown. Are they going to kick the field goal now? Yeah, I'm sorry, I call it a field goal. Why do you call it a field goal? It's not a field goal. It's an extra point. I just do.

I know it's an extra point. They're down 11. They are down 11. Yes, they're down 11. But they could have been down 10. Of course they could have. You're not following this. And maybe no one else is.

I'm following it. You're saying down 11, what do you do? Do you go for one or two? Exactly. The analytics people say you go for two. That you try to win the game in regulation. So you want to get it to nine so that your next touchdown and field goal gives you the lead, not a touchdown and a field goal to tie to force overtime.

Got it? Yeah. There's just too much going into if you're going to get a touchdown on a field goal. Not to mention how many possessions are left in the game. still at that point, you know, early in the fourth quarter against the chiefs of all teams. Like, they're going to keep scoring. But basically, part of the two-point analytic conversation and decision-making process is overtime is bad, winning a game in regulation. You have to think about winning the game in regulation. And Harbaugh at least knew what the answer was. He said,

so while many of you think getting to 10 is the thing to do, it's the thing to do if you want to go to overtime. It's not the thing to do if you want to win the game in regulation, and that's what we were trying to do. He said he listens to his analytics staff on this stuff. He listens also to his own intuitions based on a life spent in football. Thank God for that. But anyway, at 30 to 19, they went for two, and he gave you the reasoning. Here's the problem with it on Sunday. at 23 to 12 after scoring another touchdown they were down 23 to 6

and they cut it to 23 to 12 do you know what they did in that specific instance? Went for two. They kicked the extra point. Oh, did they kick the extra point at that point? Yes, so that's my problem. Sorry, I didn't follow this game. I know they went for two about it.

And that's why I'm telling you about it. So if I had been in that conversation, I would have said, well, coach, if your plan was down 11 to go for two, and that was, what your plan was going in based on this opponent and this strategy for this game, why didn't you do it at 23 to 12? Because there was too much game.

I mean, his answer is going to be because there was so much game. There was still enough game at 3019 left. But if analytics are so important, why would you pooch kick it to hope for a fair catch instead of kick it out of the back of the end zone? I'll get to that in a second. I mean, that's up. But like you're just, like, this is all skewed. Like, some seem like smart analytics choices, some seem like intuition.

choices, like you just make the decision. It's either all analytics or all intuition. By the way, the analytics is a formula. The intuition is, the time management and intuition, and a lot of that immediate stuff, is called math. There's no formula that's called subtraction in addition. That's math. Analytics is developing a formula for a certain aspect of the game.

That's right. That's why I would prefer to be called and referred to as your simple, you know, score math. I guess you're adding a formula into going for two at certain points in the game. But down 10, you know, and you don't want to go to overtime and you score a touchdown, then do you go for two instead of kick the extra point to go down two instead of go down three? Because you don't want to play for overtime, so then do you go for two? Wait. There's a lot of context to all of this.

I know. Like when it happens, why it happens? Well, I'll give you the perfect example of that. You know, and it's not a going, by the way, you know, the going. going for two at 11. Also, I just wanted to mention that, you know, by missing it, they're down 11, they still are going to have another opportunity to go for two to cut it to three to now get to overtime. I got it. So last week, week two, Denver in a game that I watched a lot of, they were down 13 to 6. They scored a touchdown late with 31 seconds to go, 13, 12, and Vic Fangio

decided they were going to go for two. I thought he made the wrong decision in the context of the game, and I talked about it last week, and the reasoning for it is, A, they had Chicago completely gassed. They had had multiple long drives in the fourth quarter. It's at altitude. They looked gassed. They looked on their heels. They looked dead in the water.

And I thought that it would have been advantage Denver going into overtime. Whether they won the toss or didn't win the toss, I thought it was going to be an advantage for them to go to overtime. The other part of it, too, is that I thought. if they kicked the extra point with 30 seconds to go, Chicago would have been much more conservative offensively, and they would have been more willing to settle for overtime. Whereas when you're down 14, 13, and they made the two-point conversion, now Chicago has to get in field goal range to try to win the game in regulation because they're losing by one. So I didn't like in context the decision that Fangio made.

They made the two-point conversion. They made it, and they had a good play for it. But anyway, there were a couple of other things from the weekend. The Tampa situation was really strange, Aaron, I think you followed this situation, but Bruce Ariens took a delay of game penalty at the end of that giant game before sending his field goal kicker out for a 34-yard field goal instead of a 29-yard field goal. And he said that his explanation was he thought his kicker had a better chance from five yards back. that just doesn't make any sense.

This isn't the college hash mark thing where actually sometimes the angle is so harsh on a short field goal that it does make sense to back it up. They actually, he just, they messed that up. And by the way, if you saw the field goal that was missed from 34 yards out, it probably would have eaten through good if it was a 29-yard field goal.

So that was obviously a major error. Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh, God, he's bad at this and has been forever. End of first half, Cooley, 49ers, first and 10 from their own 20. They get a five-yard loss on a running play, I think it was. It may have been a sack. And now they're at their own 15, with 43 seconds to go, facing second and 15, and Tomlin's got three timeouts left, and he didn't call any of them. He let them. He let them. the clock run out to go to halftime. Yep. Now, maybe he would say, man, I was worried at second and 15 with 43 seconds to go.

They were going to stay aggressive and I had my safety out or I was missing a corner at that point and I think they could have thrown the ball on us and gotten into field goal range. More times than not, if you've got a team backed up on their own 15 yard line and you've got three timeouts left and there are 43 seconds left in the half, the odds are you're going to make them punt. And if you use the three timeouts, you're going to make them punt with about 30 seconds to go, and you're going to have a chance to get points at the end of the half. I never understand why you don't think about more possessions being better than less possessions. I don't understand that ever. What was the other one? Brian Kelly really seemed indecisive at the end of the first

half, let 12 seconds run off the clock from 25 down to 13 in the Notre Dame Georgia game, ended up having to kick a field goal when he should have had much more time to continue to try to score a touchdown. That's basically it. The Baltimore thing was the most interesting because I really, after the game, I saw a guy in Harbaugh that couldn't explain anything, but by Monday in his press conference, he had the explanation for everything. And I just love a guy like that. Like, if you're going to go this route, you go this route. You know, I would not be in favor of going strictly by the math.

Context would be so significant in all of the decisions I would make in this situation. But he came out Monday and he was prepared. He was prepared for the questions. He had the answers. There's just something about that dude I've always liked, man. And remember, it was only about 10 months. ago that he was on the verge of getting fired in Baltimore. And I was telling you and others, I was like, if he gets fired,

Snyder better, that better be the first call and you roll it out whatever is required to pay him to get him here. He's a winner. That's it on the coaching blunders. Let me just say this. There's not a significant blunder in this game. but how do you have a 42 to 17 lead in the second half of a football game? 49 17. 49 17.

Yeah, they had a 42 17 lead. And then they had a one-play touchdown after. Oh, okay. But I mean, yeah, so 4917. How do you blow a 49-17 lead? Because college, you get 18 possessions in a game. No, here's how you get 18 possessions. and I get it.

But you go two plays and fumble, one play and fumble, give a punt return. But, I mean, you look at it. I watched the highlights, and then I went back and looked at it a little bit. But Washington State did not just run the ball. I get it that it's air rate offense. But you're up, 32 points. 32 points. It's like 20 minutes left in that game total.

That makes it a possession game. Yeah. And my running back is the least likely player of my team to fumble. Plus, if I have any incompletion, then let's do math in that game. Let's not call that analytics. But that is just absolutely crazy to me. Well, it's... How you blow that game.

I just don't, I just, it makes no, literally makes no sense to me. It's crazy. It was 49 to 20, it was 49 to 17 with, 6.52 left in the third quarter. They had 22 minutes basically of the game to score 50 points. And they did. UCLA scored 50 points in the final 22 minutes of that game on Saturday night, early Sunday morning. That's nuts. They had nine possessions in the second half. And to your point, here are some of the critical moments. Washington State up 49-24, they fumble on the first play. Washington State up 49-38, they fumble on the second play. Up 63 to 60, they fumble on the first play,

and down 67-63 to end the game, they fumble on the first play. I mean, that will allow you to score a lot of points in a short period of time, that many turnovers and that many short fields. But it is crazy. about the college game. If you opened up your phone and you were looking for the UCLA Washington State score and you saw 67-63, you would think, oh my God, they put last year's basketball score in there. And Washington State actually played pretty well. Yeah, right. Your basketball game. Right. Yeah, Washington State kept the close. Yeah, Washington State definitely. Washington State covered that game. But here's the other thing.

You know, you can turn it over and fumble on one plate, but you still have to give up 50. I know. I know. Let's make some adjustments defensively here, Coach. What do you want to do? I don't know. Let's rush for and let's play the next seven guys at about 20 yards deep and keep everything in front of us, the rest of the game. Well, so here, because I wasn't watching it live, I saw the highlights too, but at 4924, they fumbled on a pass play to start,

and UCLA started at their 37 and scored in one play on a 37-yard touchdown pass. It should never happen. Should never happen. Yeah. And then at 49-38 when they fumbled after a second play, it only took UCLA. I'm sorry, after the next punt, UCLA had a 94-yard touchdown play. One play. They had, hold on, I'm going to look this up, keep looking this up. UCLA scored on a one-play drive, one-play drive, four-play drive. They had two one-play-drive. drives after turnovers.

Of 49 to 31, one play, Demetrick Felton, 94-yard touchdown pass. Come on. I mean, there's a minute left in the third quarter of that one. You're still up 49-31. Let's just play some prevent defense, coach. Well, Leach just wants to keep scoring. Still a three-possession game. I know.

There were nearly 1,400 yards in that game. and there were 14 touchdown passes in the game. 14. The dude from Washington State threw nine touchdown passes. He also threw two picks. That's the thing about the two sports couldn't be more different. And you know, first of all, the way they play with, you know, everybody playing the spread, everybody running RPO with, by the way, a three-yard down-the-field limit.

You know that, right? In college, you can go, your linemen can go three yards down the field, before it's ineligible receiver. In the NFL, it's just a yard. So that really makes RPO almost impossible to stop at the college level. And then you have the clock stopping after each first down to move the chains, which, by the way, there's probably either a first down or a score on 40% of the snaps in the game. It's unbelievable.

I wonder how long it takes for the NFL to change the RPO game. to change the one yard. You know, when NFL teams run RPO, it almost never gets called a legal line in downfield. Yeah, and the opportunity to be downfield in the NFL is much greater than it is in college. See, Cooley, I think college is going to change the rule. I think college is going to say defenses need more of a chance, and they're going to move it back to a yard or two yards or something like that.

Yeah, they really probably should because it's just way too long that quarterback can sit there and hold ball. Friesian, who was on with me earlier in the week, and, you know, is such a respected coach, even though he's now been retired for, you know, several years. Loxley considers him as much of a mentor as he does Nick Sabin. And I asked him, I said, what's the biggest change? He said, RPO. And he said, the fact that they can go down to field three yards, it's impossible. If you have, it's just impossible to stop, you know, and now, you know, you just defensively,

you just don't have much of a hope against a team that runs it well. And I said, you know, maybe they've got to move that yardage back. Maybe they've got to make ineligible, you know, the NFL rule. They got to do that or they got to relax on the illegal contact rule. Because if you can't play tight man-to-man coverage, then RPO is almost impossible to stop. Because the only way you can really stop it is to play tight man-to-man coverage. Or to get immediate pressure and bat balls down.

Yeah, but if you're going to get immediate pressure, then are you getting any kind of run defense? because they're two different things. If you're going to go immediate pressure, I mean, I'm just going to hand it up. Exactly. It is wild. Thanks for doing this. I'll talk to you later, and we'll talk hopefully next week after the game.

Okay, bye. All right, Chris Cooley, everybody. Good conversation with Cooley. I always love doing that. Miss doing the show with him. I do. But I thought it was interesting because I feel the same way, and I don't know how many of you feel the same way. but I just, Adrian Peterson's a Hall of Famer.

He's a great back. He was really good at times last year. What Cooley said just to me, watching the games feels so spot on. And that is their best chance offensively is to do what they've done well, which is to throw the ball deep down the field and use Chris Thompson in the quick game. You know, they've taken deep shots down the field against a team like the Bears. You really can't do that. You go to quick game and you're getting it out quickly and you've got receivers right now.

can get open. You've got Chris Thompson out of the backfield who looks really, really good. And I think he's right that he's even the best run threat they have out of the back field right now. I agree with that. Anyway, all right, very good. We're done for the day. Enjoy the show back tomorrow with Tommy. Don't forget, rate us, review us on iTunes. Also mentioned to people who don't know that we are available also at the Kevin Sheehan Show.com.

Thank you.