The Kevin Sheehan Show - An R&D Year

Episode Date: September 28, 2020

Cooley & Kevin recapped Washington's 34-20 loss in Cleveland. They both believe that Dwayne Haskins' mistakes were costly but Cooley loved something about the mistakes Dwayne made. They had their lists of things they liked and didn't like from the game. They also went Around the NFL and finished with some LeBron discussion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, Cooley and Kevin Brown's Washington Recap Show coming up. But now more than ever, it's important to show support for your team and your community. Visa in the National Football League know that local businesses help your community move the ball down the field. Small businesses everywhere are overcoming challenges in these new times. Thanks to teammates like you and Visa. Because when everybody pitches in, everyone benefits. Being loyal to local businesses ignites growth and support. all of us and our communities because they know where you shop matters. Visa urges you to support

local retailers who are making shopping safe and reliable. And remember, tap to pay with a contactless visa wherever you see the contactless symbol to help support your community. Visa, official partner of the NFL. You don't want it. You don't need it, but you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Certainly capable. Haskins' drums over the middle and B.J. Goodson with a sliding interception at the 35. And that was the issue yesterday. Too many turnovers for the Burgundy and Gold, the Washington football team, and a 34 to 20 loss in Cleveland. It's a Cooley and Kevin recap Monday show. We're going to get right to it here momentarily. We'll go around the NFL a little bit as well. It was a crazy day again.

second consecutive week in the NFL with crazy comebacks, crazy endings, and a great football game last night. But let's start with Cooley's game take. Cooley's got some Ms and some is. Duane was the biggest is and mm throughout. And there were a lot of them. But there were some real ins to Dwayne's plays to his play. And there was some big is to his play.

Right. I want to start with a little bit of what, you know, said in terms of not pulling the plug and some of the stuff to Wayne said in the post game. And my feelings initially is this, I don't give a shit that he threw three interceptions. They're not good plays. He's going to get downgraded for him. But God, for God's sake, he got better. Maybe he saw something. He didn't just check the ball off and throw it underneath. This is what a rookie quarterback is supposed to do. These are what growing pains are. This is how we understand how to learn to manipulate a defense and use our eyes and go.

You know what I'm saying, Kevin? Like this, those balls down the field a little bit, that's not the end of the world for me. Now, in listening to his press conference, one of the is a little bit is Duane talked about, he was asked, do you think you stared some things down? On the TV broadcast, they said, Duane is staring it down. Who was the color guy? Ugh. Ugh.

I forget, actually. My fault. I totally forget. Well, afterwards, he was asked, were you staring them down? And he went through, I don't know if you listened to the, to the,

Dwayne Haskins presser, but he went through each one of the interceptions. I did listen. I did listen to it, yes. And described the coverage and described the outcome of the play. But the fact of the matter was, is I can describe the coverage and describe the play after the fact.

His job is to diagnose, analyze, and manipulate that coverage in the play. Chris Spielman. Kevin Coogler and Chris Spielman. So Chris Billman said he was staring them down. And so I went back and watched again five or six times on the TV cut. He's staring him down. I mean, he's Googling him like there's no other thing he's looking at. Right.

There's not. He is staring him down. So the thing that he's got to realize is it's not just on some of these throws that you can't look in that drug. You got to move people with your eyes. You got to hold safeties. You got to manipulate underneath defense. You got to move people with your eyes. Right.

You got to create for your receivers by tricking guys with your eyes. And so when we do the defensive film breakdown, Kev, I talk about this all the time. Like quarterback looks one way and we got receiver running the other way. And everybody's running where the quarterback looked. Like, dude, cover the guy in your zone. Well, when the receiver runs into the zone and the quarterback's staring dead in the zone, then the guy does cover the guy in his own. The quarterback has to help uncover some of these zones.

So, yeah, he did stare them down. Just, and my thing, the thing I'm really thinking about is he doesn't even think about it that way. Or I didn't want to admit it. Right. Pressor was that bad. I thought other than he'd licked his lips and licked all over his face a bunch, I didn't see that, which was really strange. Maybe he was thirsty.

He might have been parched. I thought the pressure was fine. I just thought that one, I'm interested, you know, does he realize why he's throwing these picks? Does he realize he is staring him down? Is he going to realize that? Because that's how he, that's, I like that he threw the picks. I like that he threw the ball down the field.

And if he realizes why they're picked, then he'll get better. I understand that he knows the coverage. but that's not like I can tell you the coverage on them you know what I mean yeah I think that's really interesting because the two pieces here are number one you like that he will throw the ball down field you like that he will try to make tight window throws that there's that that that is something that I think creates the possibility of a bigger upside when you're willing to do that. But on the mistakes, you just want him to understand why he made the mistakes so he can learn from them. And in many ways, that's his job, but that's really Zampezi's job and

Scott Turner's job and the coach's jobs. They've got to coach him up. They've got to say, hey, you did stare this down. You didn't read this the right way. And here's why the result happened. Exactly. And look, I'm realizing it more and more. Like so many of these young players don't really want to go into a press conference and say, yeah, it's all of me. But that's what people like. And ultimately for Dwayne, you don't have to disclose all of the play. We don't have to go back and say, well, it was a hook to Terry. It was three deep, four underneath coverage. and the backer made a heck of a play jumping underneath it

and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, I'm not sure if I was staring it down. I'll watch the film. Thanks for the asking the question. It's all you need. You don't have to go in depth into that stuff. I would rather, this is my opinion right now, since we're on this because I was going to mention this

when I got to my game take. I actually thought that Dwayne, I didn't hear the big presser that you watched. Maybe we listened to the same thing. It's on the Washington Web. I know. I listened to Scott Jackson and London Fletcher's interview with him on the actual game broadcast post-game. And I actually thought that he really came off as so much more mature than last year and more humbled than last year. Last year was a little bit, you know, at times uncomfortable to watch him. And I thought personally that he was just nervous. So I'm not, I know what you're saying. Like he almost over did it. with his answers, but I'm not going to be critical of it because I actually thought his demeanor was much better. Okay, let me clarify as well. I thought he was much more mature. It was just the

one answer, and it wasn't per se. For me, it wasn't per se that I didn't think he was being humble or that there was anything about him. Understood. My thought process was in that one answer, the rest of the presser I thought was pretty good. The one answer, I just hope he knows he's staring them down. Yeah, no, I got it. I got it. And I didn't see that as a lack of humility. Sorry.

In no way am I being critical of him as a person in this professor. I thought he did actually do a pretty good job as well in the one I watched. All right. Next, uh, uh, or mm. By the way, I am interested. Give me the,

the plays that you thought Dwayne really looked good. You're, you're, hey, that wasn't that bad because I thought there were some of those moments. as well. I thought there was some of those moments for sure throughout the game. I thought some throws to Terry and some run action passes were really good.

Down the field on the numbers throughout the game, I thought he made some really good throws. I thought he did a heck of a job on both of the throws down in the red zone that he hit to Inman. And one, I thought he did a good job holding the single eye safety with his eyes. Yeah, the touchdown pass to Inman, the second one, I thought that that may have been his third read. The second touchdown passed, Inman? Yeah, the second touchdown, he goes through three different, it looks like he goes through progression there, right to left.

Yeah, I thought he did a heck of a job getting through things and making some big time throws. And those were some big ones. I thought he looked comfortable when they went to empty set, and I noted that. And I thought Scott Turner did a much better job getting into empty. sets and keeping balance throughout a lot of this game. So when they were in some of these empty looks, I thought he looked pretty comfortable sitting there in the pocket. I thought he made some throws that could have been picks.

Like there were two or three, there could have been two or three other picks in this game. No doubt. Denzel Ward had the one right in his hands. Yeah, which may have changed. I mean, it still may have ended up being three or four picks. But, and I thought there's still some throws that he could, that he could, that he, overthrew or that he missed a little bit that could have been big time throws but there i thought he was a little bit closer on some of those throws like an overthrow right before inman to terry

to terry mccloren that he just had outstretched no touch it was after the fumbled handoff and then he overthrows mccloren and i'm like are they trying to give this away yeah right it was it was after a big time fourth and through fourth and two that was a big throw I thought that was one of the best throws and it was an awkward position throw which many of his throws are but that fourth and three that they went for where he hits Thomas is a big time play

no doubt about it so yeah I thought there was some positive to build off of from DeWain I'm just going to tell you right now is film breakdown probably going to be a D again oh yeah of course just so we're clear it like it may get into the C minus range, but it's not going to be good.

But the thing is, some of the things I'm going to grade in this game, like those picks, at least I think he's learning from it. And at least the ball got down the field. To me, that's more important right now. We're clearly in the research development phase. You like that, don't you?

Which is ultimately was my next kind of big, I wrote this down to start, what do you got? I said, what do you got? If I'm an older player and it gets down to about three and a half, four minutes, I'd just go out there and call time out. You're just going to do it yourself. I'll walk out there, call time out. Coach, you forgot something, but I took care of it for you.

And I'd walk back over the sideline and say, someone's going to love to pick me up this week, Ron, after you cut me, because they actually see that I care about winning a football game. There might be seven or eight other research development guys around this league, but there's about 24 teams that go, he wants to win. That's the kind of player we want. It's crazy. It's honestly.

I just don't understand. I mean, they are not completely out of this game. Okay? They're not. He doesn't care. You get down to that fourth and four where there was still in the two, minute mark right the carrigan jumped off sides yeah they weren't even gonna the play they weren't even gonna run a play it was the no snap no play right call yeah just gonna shift around and you get

the carrigan to jump off sides like yeah that's an yeah but how do you call how do you not call time out before that i have no idea the whole thing the whole thing is i mean i you want you to get through year as and then we'll save that because there's a big conversation here because it leads to what we've talked about here over the last week, which is there really is something going on here that's fairly unique, which is an admission that you're not trying to win games at all. You know, even a team that tanks, which you don't really see very often in the NFL, like Miami last year looked like they were on the verge of trying to tank for Tua or would have ended up being Burrow because they got Tua.

And then they put Ryan Fitzpatrick in the game and said, to hell with that. You know, my guys want to win. Brian Flores said, we're not that terrible with Ryan. Let's go win some games. You got a coach that literally is tapping out and then saying I'm tapping out because winning doesn't matter now. We are in the development phase. This is about next year and the year after that.

Well, I mean, I would argue that part of the development phase would be trying to win games and working on your two-minute offense with your young quarterback. Like part of the R&D is. the young quarterback would be to see how he handles down two scores. Hey, we need to get a quick one, so we have a chance at an onside kick. I'd like to see my onside kick team out there late in a game. But whatever. I mean, the biggest disconnect on all of this, Cooley, is that a couple of them.

Number one, I think he's a good coach. I felt that way in Carolina. And I'm not backing off that at all. But this is illogical. The non-use of timeouts the last two weeks is illogical, and his explanations don't make any sense whatsoever because his explanations aren't backed up by his actions. I'll tell you something that I don't think anybody that's involved in this conversation is spending time on. The end of the first half.

There's 30 seconds left, or there's over a minute left. They could have saved 30 seconds at the end of the first half. They could have saved a lot of time on defense, but even when, they go out and decide that they don't want to score, they run Gibson, he rips off a nine-yard run, and did you see him? He was intentionally trying to stay in bounds to keep the clock rolling. Obviously, he was directed to stay in bounds because they didn't want to try to score down 17 to 7. Now, when you rip off that nine-yard run on first down, and you're out at the 34-yard line, and you got timeouts left, and you got a kicker who, by the way, can kick it 53.

55, 56, 58 yards. I mean, what are you researching and developing? Who are you protecting at that point? I'm being serious. It's insane. It's insane. It's insane. I mean, the end of the first half, they're down.

177. Cleveland's a score one way or another going in with a minute left. They have three timeouts. You're not helping Cleveland. If they need to take more time to try to score a touchdown, one way or another, they're going to have plenty of time with over a minute left. So that's, he's got to sit there like, hey, why don't we save some time on our end? In this research development, I'd like to see Dwayne go up tempo. Maybe this game ends up being a tie game in the fourth quarter and we need to go up tempo.

And now our quarterback's got to feel for it at the end of the half because it's three weeks in. We haven't really done that a lot this year. Look, the bottom line is I'd feel I wouldn't agree with it as a fan, okay, but I could understand it more if he said, look, I'm trying to protect my players. I'm concerned about injuries. We're in development mode. We're not trying to win games. And then, you know, instead of handing the ball off twice to Gibson to end the game or Barbara or whomever it was, he took two knees and took his three timeouts and got on the plane and went home. But that's not what he's doing. He's putting his team at more risk at a higher injury risk by running plays without the upside reward of potentially pulling off a miracle. Like if you're going to try to pull off a

miracle and put your players at risk, do that, which by the way I would. Secondly, if you're not, then don't put your players at risk. Because now the only thing is no reward. but there's a risk there. Last week on the final play of the game against the Cardinals when they ran Gibson, there ended up being a big pile on Chase Ruiye. Like he could have gotten hurt.

This is the problem with it, and I would say to him... It would hurt in real time anyways. I would just say to him, Coach, this doesn't make any sense because you're talking about injury protection, weighing that against the long-shot opportunity to win. a game, but you're also admitting that winning isn't important right now. And yet you continue to

run plays at the end of these games, putting your players at risk with no chance at an upside. And, you know, on defense, when you're not calling timeouts, why not put in every single substitute player you can and take as many players out of the game so you don't risk them? So there's not a, there's not a connection there with what he's saying in his actions. The actions, by the way, are embarrassing. I mean, they just are. You don't see this in the league. You don't see coaches purposefully tapping out at the end of two score games. And no matter what, you know, I gave this one scenario earlier, Cooley. 19 to 3, you've got 35 yards of total offense. There's 2.38 left in the game. And you've lost eight players to injury. You know what? In that situation, I get it. Like you're not going to score twice.

convert two two-point conversions because you can't move the ball and they're killing you and they're knocking every player, good player out of the game. So let's get the hell out of Dodge and not use our timeouts. I can understand context like that. Last week, they had scored on three straight offensive drives. Yesterday, they had the capability of scoring. They had the leave going into the fourth quarter of the game yesterday. So, I don't know. I mean, The most important thing is I hope the guy's healthy. I think that there's a lot going on in his life right now. That's more important than a lot of this stuff.

And I can't begin to speak to the position he's in right now personally. But these are just illogical and then the explanations are nonsensical. So you can't debate that, people. I don't care about the position. Like everyone understands the positioning is in. it's not going to impact the way I judge the decisions he's making in games. And so I have two thoughts on the decision he's making. One, he wants to lose the ballgame, which is interesting.

And then you can delve into why does he want to lose ballgames? Does he not believe in Dwayne? Does he want to draft quarterback first overall? Does he want a top five pick? Is that part of the process? Is that part of the building thing right now for what he sees? Does he want to lose the ballgame? Or does he almost want to tank these ballgames?

That's a question. I mean, it's hard to do in the NFL, and it's hard to get away with. But when you're down 10 points and you just basically say, it's over, got us. That'll give you, I mean, there's a chance. It was 11. Yeah, I mean, just in general throughout the year. You're down two scores. There's something to it.

I mean, not trying to win. And then the other one is just the pure, I want to be so pure about. this process thing and I want to be so descriptive and show my players. This year is about getting better and we're not going to press to win. We're just, we're going to get better every week. That to me, I don't understand it. I disagree with it. But I, sorry, I do understand it. I disagree with it. I would just, I would ask you how that makes you better though. Competitively, it takes everything from guys. But when you take everything competitively and just make it about being better and make it about a process,

I think there is something that you do to your psyche of your team is make it more machine-like. It's not about, it's not results driven. I wholeheartedly disagree with that entire philosophy. And the thing is, is it doesn't work for me. it works for some people and you have to build that culture with those type of people. I'm a, you got to do things the right way, but when it comes to getting results, like, let's get it done anyway. We can get it done. However, we have to do it.

So it just doesn't mentally, it doesn't resonate. I understand if that were the case. And that's a hard explanation, right? It's a hard, like, I'm going to do a deep delve into Bill Walsh. in a presser. And basically yesterday he just said, I don't have anything to answer. I don't have to answer to any of you guys. Right. He doubled down yesterday. And he doubled down apparently this morning too in the press conference on this and is doing the thing that a lot of times you get from coaches when they get defensive about things. And that is you guys don't know the context. You don't

know what you're talking about. And again, I mean, look, maybe you're right. Like maybe they're tanking for Trevor, you know? And if that's the plan, okay, that's fine. And I I know that they can't say that out loud. I get it. I personally don't really think that that's the plan. You know, if you want to say he's genius because he's taking all of the heat on himself to try to deflect it from, say, his quarterback, okay, but I'm not so sure that that's really what he's doing. That's not intuitive to me based on, you know, listening to this. I just think one of the big complaints that Panther fans had about Ron Rivera was not, was he a decent person, was he? he a good football coach? Was he good at X's and O's, where his team's tough and discipline? But the number one complaint that Panther fans had is he was terrible at clock and game management stuff. And David Tepper, the new owner there, who is a big time analytics guy. One of the

reasons they moved on is Ron is an old school guy, you know, and I don't mind old school at all. But I just, there's such a massive disconnect here that no explanation at this point, I don't think, other than tanking for Trevor, would connect it together because his actions don't back up his explanation. And the actions alone, like even if he did take two knees at the end of yesterday and a knee last week and he was playing defensive subs, I still wouldn't disagree with it. but at least it would be consistent with the way he's explaining it. But there's a total massive disconnect with his explanation and his actions. They don't make any sense. And as far as developing the R&D mode, this experimentation year, I just don't know how you lose by allowing your quarterback to get into two-minute

at the end of halves or games to see how he performs in those situations. I mean, if you're not worried about winning, then what's the downside of failing there? Anyway, I mean, we could go on and on. I think it's a really difficult message I would assume for players to take when your coach is outwardly saying, we're not trying to win. And in fact, I'm going to go so far as to ensure that we have no chance of winning in a miraculous way, the way that multiple teams have won in the first three weeks of the season, ironically. we've seen more of these two score late, you know, late game comebacks in the first three weeks of the season than we've seen in a long time.

But anyway, there's a reason. You don't try, you don't not try to win if you don't have a reason. It's just not been explained to anybody. It's weird. You know, there's a reason. I'm going to find, I'm going to figure it out. I don't think, I, Cooley, I think he's just bad at this. And I think that, I think he's deflecting by really.

No. No one's just bad at it. They don't... Do you think they're really trying to tank? How do you explain the Philadelphia game then? Down 17, nothing. I'm not suggesting that they tried to tank. They came back in the Philadelphia game before... They started to come back into the first half of the Philadelphia game. And they were ahead later, like into the fourth quarter of the game. They were heading this Browns game 20 to 17. Into the fourth quarter in the fourth quarter.

So that's not a tank job. I mean, getting beat 5910 is a tank job. Like the dolphins were doing early last year. Not necessarily. He can take it any point in the game. So I'm not, trust me, you not quote me, don't do this thing. I'm not trying to say they tanked. I'm just, I'm making a list of reasons why you don't try to win a game that you're down. What are the other reasons?

Well, I told you the process, the entire process thing and trying to suggest to your players that winning isn't the most important thing. The result isn't the most important thing. It's the process of getting to the result. we do things the right way, we will get those results. And trust me, guys, when we're doing things the right way and I see that you're doing them the way we're coaching them, then we're going to go ahead and try to win those games. But at this point, I want to keep, we're still in step A, okay?

Before we get to step B, I want to see it from you guys. Step B is two-minute drill at the end of the half. Then we'll move on from there. I can see this whole, like, process thing that you could pitch to your team. But he's not speaking to process. He's speaking to injury protection more than anything else. Yeah, well, coaches do that, Kevin. I'm telling you, I think the injury protection is a lie.

Like, remember when Rex Grossman was in better cardiovascular health than Donovan McNabb? You should run a few minutes ago? Yeah, I do. Really? That one, that was one that I think Mike probably said in about 15 seconds later, went, oh, yeah, Rex is a little chubby. That's not, that's probably bad on. I got caught on that.

Right. coaches don't have to tell the truth to the media. I just think, hey, look, keeping guys safe sounds good a little bit. Enough people go, yeah, you know, he's out there just making sure he loves these boys. He's trying to keep them safe. I'm just going to make a prediction right now. However long Ron Rivera is here, and I hope it's a long time, and I hope it's a successful Lorraine, I think that there's going to be a lot of this discussion during the course of seasons.

I think there's going to be a lot of clock and game. You know, it's almost the gift that keeps on giving here with me in particular in the shows that I've been involved in because Jay was terrible at it. You know, Mike truly at times was inconsistent with it. And, you know, and obviously Zorn had zero clue. So it's sort of the post-game Monday gift that keeps on giving, but I don't think he's going to be good at this. That's my prediction. I think

we're going to have, even when the process is complete and the R&D period is over and they've discovered the few drugs that are going to work against this deadly disease and they are selling them. And boy, the markup, I mean, you know, there's a lot of money that goes

into R&D. That's why these prescriptions are so expensive. And And once we get to that point, I think there are still going to be some, what do you call that when you put two drugs together that don't, a drug contradiction? What's the term I'm looking for? You know, when you shouldn't interaction. We're still going to have some bad prescription interactions in these games. That's my prediction.

Here's my other question is, you know, they only won every other year in Carolina. is there a point in the off season or in the training camp where we decided it's an R&D year? They didn't have back-to-back winning seasons in Carolina. Is there a point in the off season or in training camp or do you just decide if it's an R&D year? I don't think so. I think this first year. Hey, we're not good enough, Ron. No.

Let's push the date back to August 15th, and on August 15th, we'll decide. here Ron, it's August 15th. Like two more bad practices. Just give us two more days, two more days. We'll make the R&D decision. I think that, I think we can do a little bit more fact-finding this year, and then next year we'll be there. A little bit more analysis on us. All right.

You've got some more us and Ms. I've got an entire game take minus the Ron Rivera thing, which we've now already done. But first, this word for magic. spoon. I'm a big cereal guy. I love cereals. And Magic Spoons, this new cereal, I got sent all of these boxes of Magic Spoon cereals, zero sugar count, 11 grams of protein, and only three net grams of carbs in each serving. The flavors are cocoa, fruity, frosted, and blueberry. I've sat here in studio, coolly, and eaten the entire box of blueberry Magic Spoon cereal. The cocoa box is basically three quarters gone. I'll get to the fruity and frosted afterwards, but I went with my

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And use the code, Kevin, DC, for free shipping. We thank Magic Spoon for sponsoring the podcast. All right, Kevin. My ums and is. This is what I like and what I don't like. Let's just call it that. I will say this. What I don't like is that I realized this morning, I should make this a Letterman top 10 list

because I jump into my number one and my number two and then we jump out of what I like and don't like. True. We did that. I should go 10 through one and save the impactful ones and just reorganize. them. I didn't do that today, but we'll do it in. I just naturally, I just naturally go through my notes and I find the things like Dwayne, impactful, something I want to talk about. Both ways, you know, the timeout stuff.

It's same for you. So I will have a, I will amend this. And from now on, it will be a top 10 or top 15 and I'll start at the bottom end. Very good. Here's the thing that I liked from this game. I liked that Scott Turner had really good play calling balance throughout the game. And I thought it did pretty good job continuing to run the football throughout the game. They ended up rushing the ball for 100 yards. They passed it for a little over 200, I think, total offense. Duane had 224. But the integration of some of the screens, some of the quick game stuff, Terry McLaren on a third and one on a fly sweep, you know, the inman throw where if you listen to the game broadcast on the radio, DeAngelo Hall saying,

I love you, Scott Turner, which was a little bit weird. I thought Scott Turner did a pretty good job with balance as an offensive play caller. To me, there was good flow to the offense. And I thought that got Duane into some good rhythms, especially on drives where they executed. You know, the first scoring dive, it was a quick game, it was an RPO, it was a screen, another quick game on third down. It's just a run. There was just bad. There was balance to it.

There was good rhythm. It was good for Duane. I like empty sets for Duane. When they get into empty set situations, they're able to get matchups with guys they like. Terry gets in the slot and he's at one-on-one with the linebacker who's covering him in zone coverage. Those are good throws for doing.

You see a linebacker over Terry McLaurin. You've identified zone right that second because you know they're not going to play a linebacker in man and you've out-leverage the linebacker with a better player. So empty sets and Terry moving around are big. Terry McClure in general is a massive, like yum, thing I love. Terry McLaurin's awesome. He's running after the catch and break tackleability is really, really good.

I think he had like eight targets. He ended up with 80 yards. Two were just outstretched hands. I thought he could have had 120 again this week. Yeah. I mean, more to Terry. And if people are not going to pay him respect the way Cleveland, I don't think truly paid him respect,

then he needs 15 targets a game because he's the one playmaker on your team. In saying that, I'm watching that kid Isaiah Wright looked like he could run a little bit. Yeah, I agree. Who the hell is Isaiah Wright? I thought Isaiah Wright looked okay in this game. I like McKissick a lot. I suggested to you that last week, Ron Rivera and Scott Turner,

man, they were so good with Christian McCaffrey out of the backfield. Well, McKissick had a couple huge catches in this game out of the backfield and third down situation. I like the way McKissick runs the ball. I like the way he's out of the backfield. I think he's pretty player.

Montez Sweat was everywhere. for a while through the third quarter. He was unblockable. I thought Montes Sweat really stepped up his game and was big time. Duran Payne seemed to be everywhere in this game. Big time, stepped up his game again. To me, it seemed like I just saw Bostic in every picture. I'm not sure.

We'll look at that. Defensively, in general, when you look at what I thought they had to do, I thought they did a pretty good job. You know, Browns were a big yards per play team, especially on first down. They held them total yards in this game to an average of 4.8 yards per play. Right. Washington actually had five yards per offensive play. They outgain them per play.

They outgain them in total net yards. Yeah, they did. They just turned the ball over five times. But defensively, they actually were pretty darn good if you look at it. There's just a couple of things. and the things I dislike, I will get to those things. But, man, they did the things they had to do to win this game on defense. They really did.

They played well enough on defense to have a chance to win this game. Before I get to the things I really didn't like, the is. A couple of things that I thought were bullshit. They're up 7-3 with 744 and a half, and they run a reverse, which was a play I really liked. And West Martin gets called for a hold. There's no hold there. Straight pin block.

I want everyone on that 10 times. I can't find a hold there. You're up 7.3. You have momentum. You're playing great defense. And you end up having a second and 20 and then a bad ball to Gibson. And it's a second. It was a first and 20 and then a second 25.

And it killed a drive that should have been a first in five where they could have had some rhythm. Right. I just didn't understand that. I thought the OPI call on Terry was absolutely crazy. and I thought that hurt them quite a bit. That was before another turnover. Right, right before another turnover. Now, who's to say that they don't go down

and turn it over on the next play? Sure. But those are plays that got you out of rhythm. That's right. I also think when you're talking about interesting calls, I just noted, Baker Mayfield had a intentional grounding, Mauna Monta's sweat hit.

Yeah. That sucks that they call that. That should just be a dead. sack for Montez. Well, who cares? It's spotted there as an intentional grounding. It's a spot. I know. It doesn't hurt the team. I'm just saying, like, that's a sack. Give them the staff. I wrote that down.

So, um, look, I liked that Dwayne bounced back in the second half. I like that they took that drive down the field. I liked the big place to Inman. I thought those were, were big time plays. Um, it's just got to continue to tie together. a lot of the things I didn't like as we go through this. Troy Apkey continues to miss tackles. Again, I bet you there's a lot of... On the touchdown run. I bet you there are a lot of plays where we're going to find him in good position.

But just you got so much space back there and that chub missed was a... You just can't miss that. I'm talked about the Dwayne Haskins interceptions a little bit. Talked about the no-tide end or no timeout at the end of the half. one of the fumbles, I didn't like the Gibson fumble. There ended up being five turnovers. That turnover didn't impact the game. That's right.

That was a non-impact play in any moment or in the moment of the game. Second half, third and two on the opening drive for Duane, he takes a sack. If you freeze frame it, the short hook over the ball is wide open in front, five yards in front of him. Is that Logan Thomas? Row it. Yeah. I hated that. The fumbled hand, the, the,

after a great deal on a boot and Gandy Golden had to draw, I mean, the fumbled handoff exchange was crazy down there. I mean, the whole, that whole scoring drive was like overcoming adversity. I loved that. There was some adversity on that. The next thing I have is,

when I thought one of the biggest momentum changes in the game was a third and 12 after Washington had taken a 20 to 17 lead. They ran a zone blitz. They dropped Ryan Kerrigan into coverage. The hole is between Ryan Kerrigan and Troy Apke. And I just wrote, laugh out loud, everyone runs sticks, hook routes in the middle of the field on third and long. Who is Ryan Kerrigan covering? Yeah, he dropped in coverage on that play.

You're right. Who is he covering? I don't know. I just... Did they blutz Collins on that play? Is that why he dropped on the coverage? I mean, they ran two guys off the edge. I didn't actually look close to who.

I just saw that it was a zone blitz, and they dropped Ryan Kerrigan. And I'm guessing that when Ryan's dropping on third and 12, you're saying, hey, look, these are the concepts that you're looking for on third and 12. But the secondary knows the concepts you're looking for on third and 12. And everybody runs in the middle of the field, they run a hook right around the sticks. It can't be that open. Right. Those windows have to close.

So I didn't like that. And the rest of that drive, they just get gashed on the run. Gashed. And Cooley, that's a really, really good call on a big play. It's 20 to 17. You've dominated the last two defensive drives with three and outs. You've got all the momentum in the world. Kareem Hunt's, you know, Montez Sweat drops hunt for a big loss.

And it's third and 12, and you're going to end up getting the ball back again in decent field position up three. And now, by the way, we are late in the third quarter. And that's a really good call. I, on a huge play, huge play for Cleveland to pick that up. Dron Payne is menacing inside. Montes Sweat hasn't been blocked in the second half. Did we need to blitz?

Yeah. It's third and 12. You can play sticks coverage. Like you can set your feet at 12 yards and drive on anything underneath. I'm just not, that I hate that. That call in that situation, I hated it. I hated it. Yeah.

And then you get gashed on the field and they start running the ball. And I did note this. In the color commentary, it was described as this is who they are. This is Stefanski's identity. This zone run stuff. It's dead counter. There were a bunch of counters there. And I told you yesterday, this is not a zone run team as much as it is a counter run team.

and it's primarily Bill Callahan. Yeah. Everyone will say this is zone run because it's Stefansky and it's the Shanahan. This is a counter run system. Chubbs big run on that drive. Correct me if I'm wrong. It looked like old counter-tray.

It was counter-tray. Yeah. It's Bill Callahan. So some of the, I mean, I don't know how a former linebacker is going to describe counter-tray as Stefansky's identity, but that's what it got described as.

Yeah, that's about it. I mean, I wrote one more thing that I loved in this game. I love that Miles Garrett on the Sacks strip went for the ball. I just wrote like, this is peeking tape for young defensive ends. Like, sacks are great, but turnovers are game changing. I just loved that. And it was funny. I wrote this down.

I'll let you get it to your game take, but this was a second note. It was almost a funny note. And Gokwe had one as well. their game on Ryan Tannahill. Yeah. Gokway, the former turp. Right. Go watching Gokwe's, just if anybody's listening to me real quick, because everything up to the point where he got the strip sack looked just like Miles Garrett's strip sack. But go watching Gawke's strip sack.

He sees that he caused a fumble and then he starts celebrating. And Tennessee falls on the ball. Like he glances back and sees the, he knows he knocked the ball out. He's celebrating a sack. I did have... But I love the strip versus the big hit in the back. I do, unless you're playing Kyler Murray, then I think you just hit him in the back. All right.

Let's get to my game take. Pay attention. He's Kevin's Game Take. My game take's going to sound an awful lot like Coolies. I think he's going to be proud of me today. But it's brought to you by today, mybooky.orgie. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that the NFL's back, the NBA championship series, the NBA Finals are getting ready to start.

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turn the ball over to Cleveland with a chance to turn it into points. But usually you see a minus five or a minus four. You're down 35-13. Like the game's over. You don't have any chance in this league typically to be competitive in a game in which you keep handing the ball to the other team. And by the way, the other team keeps scoring off of your turnovers. Cleveland had 24 points off of four legitimate turnovers in this game.

So one of my big takeaways is that, you know, and Doc said it this morning on the radio show with me, they don't suck. They're better this year. You can already sense it through three games. Now, a lot of that is the defensive front, you know, which really got them back into this game, and I'll get to that in a moment. But I think there was some good in this game, and I think you hit on. some of it. And the first thing I had was, I just think Scott Turner through three games,

especially yesterday, has proven that he knows what he's doing. I mean, he gave Dwayne and the offense a good game plan, that when they executed and didn't make mistakes, they moved the football. You know, he made it a point to put something together that's worked for Dwayne in the second halves of the first two games, some up tempo, some hurry up. I loved your point about the empty sets. It creates these matchups, as you mentioned, with McLaurin. against a linebacker in the slot, and Dwayne's able to read it quickly and get it out quickly. It almost forces him to get it out quickly. There was quick game in there.

The running game involved more diversity to it. You had three wide receivers end up with rushes in this game, Gandy Golden, Isaiah Wright, and McLaren on that third down sweep. I thought he really schemed people open all day, including on third down. They were five for 11 on third down with a couple of those people running wide open. you know, bottom line, the quarterback more than anybody else was the one that was inconsistent executing a game plan that really should have worked better. They should have had more yards and more points.

They were three for three in the red zone. So Scott Turner is on the things that I liked the list. Before you move on, real quick, you can count the last turnover because there were about four more potential turnovers that they didn't have in this game. That's true. And so the fact that they... The second drive, the second drive, Duane almost throws one on the corner, a big hit blows it up to stop it.

There was a screen that he almost threw a pick on that was crazy. There was a fumbled handoff exchange in the red zone on a drive where they ended up scoring. Like two of the drives, they ended up scoring should have been turnovers. You can count five. It was bad as far as turning the ball. Montez Sweat played his best game as a pro. You know how much I loved him before that draft. And what I think you see with him not dropping into coverage every other play is in not thinking

so much as you see the athleticism and you see the most. motor. That's what I loved watching him at Mississippi State was just this relentless sideline to sideline motor. And he changed the game. You know, it's 177. And Cleveland, and the third and two miss where Dwayne takes the sack. And now it's, you know, the game's got a chance to get away. But sweat forces the grounding call. They get the ball back. Short field. They score. Then he's got the sack. He ruins that drive for Cleveland. They get the ball back. short field, they score, and all of the sudden, it's 20 to 17. He finished with a sack, two tackles for loss, a forced grounding penalty, and four quarterback hits in the game,

with Chase Young and Matt Ionitis leaving the game early. I thought he was just excellent. I thought John Allen and Duran Payne were also really good. You know, 93 seemed to be around the ball making tackles near or around the line of scrimmage all day long. Same with Payne. You know, the interesting thing about this defensive front. We talked about, and I thought, you know, this was the real first run-stopping test of the year. I know what the Cleveland numbers were in the game. I mean, Chubb went 19 carries 108 yards, 5.7 yards per carry, but I still felt like up front, they did a pretty good job against the run. I know that doesn't necessarily make sense, but I see a good potential run-stopping front. And I'll tell you, when Allen and Payne and Young in particular,

and Young went out early. When they tackle people, they swallow people. These guys disappear. There is nothing about the last two weeks of giving up 30 and 34 points that diminishes my optimism about this defensive line at all. I think it has a chance to be great, like legit great. McClorn, obviously, you know what I love about McLaren, Cooley? there's a very effortless way in which he produces.

Like he gets separation without, you know, with very minimal extra movements. Like he catches the ball and his run after the catch isn't like electric. It's very subtle and almost effortless. And yet he's pulling away from people. He's making people miss with speed, vision, etc. I think the film's going to reveal, as you've already discussed, the opportunity for a much bigger day than four catches 83 yards. But I like, as you said, Turner does a nice job of figuring out how to get McLaurin into matchups that are favorable, but he doesn't even need him. He's exceptional.

For the first time on the list of things that I liked list, Tressway was really good yesterday. Only three punts, too, but when you turn it over five times and you score, you know, on three touchdown drives, you're not going to end up punting it that much. The list of things that I didn't like, obviously the turnover is you just, you can't turn the ball over that much and expect to win a game. Now, a couple of things about Haskins, most of which you've touched on, some of which you have not. I thought Turner gets a lot of credit for him getting into rhythm early. And on the three touchdown drives, Dwayne was pretty good. And I know a couple of them were, you know, that first one in the second half had opportunities to go south.

The very first one, Denzel Ward drops, well, then drop the interception. Isaiah Wright does a really good job of turning into a defender and knocking it out of his hands on a terrible throw. But ultimately, Dwayne made some throws, especially in the red zone, the empty set stuff. Three for four on that first drive, you know, with a touchdown pass. Three for five in the second drive with a touchdown run from, from Gibson, and then on that final one that gave him the lead, he was four for six, and I thought that that was one of his better throws. He had the fourth and three throw to Logan Thomas, which we've already talked about. And then on the inman throw, it really looks like he goes

one, two, three, you know, across the board and comes back, and he really can throw it. Like, he's, I mean, when that thing flicks out of his hands and the footwork seems wrong and they're awkward positions, but man, that ball gets there in a hurry when he is decisive. But the bottom line with Dwayne's performance is it was just too much awful. You know, he looks off with footwork. He looks off and awkward in his positions throwing it. I know he's got the arm strength and the quick release sometimes to overcome some of it, but bad throws, hurtful throws, bad decisions, misreads, staring down receivers, yes. And the bottom line is he was the number one reason the team lost the game and whomever was number two wasn't even close to Dwayne.

No matter what. And I loved your point about him throwing down the field and it's okay and he's got to learn from it. And during this R&D year, okay, I want him to throw the ball down the field and we've predicted and we've already talked about he's going to have some ups, he's going to have some downs. And yesterday was a mostly down with a few up moments. but that game was lost because of his poor plays. He made too many bad plays.

He got picked off three times. I counted at least two others he should have been picked off on, and he could have had another fumble or two as well. I don't think there's any reason to discuss Kyle Allen or Alex Smith. I think, you know, the coach has already admitted that winning is not a goal this year. It's an R&D year. It's an experimentation year. And to me, that means Dwayne's got to play.

And I want to make this one other point, coolly, about Dwayne and about the coach. The coach has told you that this is not about winning this year. It's a process of trying to figure it out. Once he does go to a backup quarterback, if he does, that's it for Dwayne, period. You have found out that somebody, you know, in a trial, took that medication and got seriously ill. you can't go back to him. This is Dwayne to figure it out if he's the guy, and once you decide he's not,

you can move on to the next guy, but you can't come back to him, period. So I'm looking at this guy, and I'm like, it's 10 starts total, it's three starts with this group in an odd off season. Personally, I'd like to see him play 13 more games this year. I'd like to see him start 13 games. I'd like to see the progress.

I'd like to live through the ups and downs. and I'd like to find out whether or not he can do it. If the coaching staff gets to the point where they don't think he can do it, well, then move on from him, you know, and say, that's it. Dan, we tried it. It didn't work. We're going to have to draft somebody in 2021, period. Apparently, by the way, and I'm reading a couple of quotes from his press conference today, he made this comment.

He said, there is a point where we would, would have to make a change if Dwayne's play doesn't improve. There is a cutoff point. He said that there was one other quote. He's still learning and growing, but at some point you're no longer a rookie. So there may have been today, and I haven't heard it. I'm only reading the quotes. There may have been a little bit more from Ron today to put more pressure on Dway.

He watched the film. He watched the film. you watch the film. So anyway, do you agree with me, though, if he does decide to go to Kyle Allen in an R&D year and not try to win year, that that's it, that's got to be it for Dwayne, right? You've made the decision. First of all, I agree with you that I want to see the entire year from Dwayne for obvious reasons, as Mike would say, for a lot of reasons.

You know, even if you do decide you potentially are going to go away from Dwayne and you end up getting a first second or third overall pick because you're losing games, you do want to have value in Dwayne Haskins, more so than what Josh Rosen was when he was cut from Arizona. And if Dwayne evolves and becomes a player that someone could see as a starter for them, then there's something to that. Or as a very quality backup, there's more value. That's not what I'm suggesting I want out of Dwayne right now.

I want to see that Dwayne evolves to become the starter. Give him another Terry McLaurin on the other side and a little bit more offense. And now we know he can make these throws and he can, He can do what we're asking him to do. I think that's what you're hoping for. And that's what you want to get out of your quarterback. He can be a great quarterback. There's definitely a cutoff point because the cutoff point becomes the moment

where you're now having to explain to your offense. Like, this is what we're trying to do. You see what we're coaching here. But this is why we're not getting it. And why we're not getting it continues to result in quarterback play. It's hard for the rest of the players to build. culture to build that offense. I also want to be clear, while I'm fully endorsing that Duane continue to grow and build,

and I don't doubt that he can. I really don't. I don't know if I fully believe that he will, but I wouldn't be surprised if he developed. I've heard a couple people say in defense of Duane, this isn't all on the quarterback. Some of these games, like there are moments in games where some guys are missing tackle, or their plays over the top, or there's different scenarios where it's not. not on the quarterback. This game was all on the quarterback. You said it, and I'm going to say it. Great quarterback play, and they're going to win this ballgame. But a lot of games are on the

quarterback in the NFL. The quarterback's the most important position there is. So, yeah, and I think both the last couple games, a lot of it was on quarterback play. I wouldn't even say they needed great quarterback, coolly. I think, I think a mistake of just a fewer, just two less turnovers, and they got a chance to win this game. I thought this was on quarterback. And again, I'm telling you, like, I want to see if you're going to be an R&D, I'm telling my quarterback, throw the ball down the field. And I don't want him to come back and say, I can't force things.

I want him to find out how to get it down the field. And maybe by forcing it early, he realizes what he has to do to get it down the field. I want our play caller to be able to say, look, we're taking shots here. you got to get it down the field. And you got to use your, like you said, it's eyes, right? He's got to learn how to move the defensive pieces into the area of the field that, you know, the great quarterbacks do to create the openings to throw the ball down the field. Here's a great description of this for you and on any given play.

He threw, he, it was a four-verts crosser over the middle of the field to Logan Thomas, right? the backer undercuts it. He said it's a cover three. The backer did a great job undercutting it, yada, yada, yada. The Malcolm Smith, pit picker interception. There comes a time when you have to realize that you're going to make the initial read on the free safety. And sometimes just staring at the free safety is going to be enough. And honestly, maybe Dwayne was staring at the free safety, not Logan Thomas.

But in staring at the free safety, he didn't fill the underneath coverage. there comes a time when you have to sense what the free safety is doing on vertical routes with spacing and you have to look off the underneath linebacker. There's a whole thing to this where the quarterback, it's not just one guy sometimes. You got to know where the one guy is going to be or have the expectation and anticipation that safety will take this player. Or hey, Logan Thomas's route was a little bit short on the crosser. But because it's short, you know that single high safety is going to go back to the

next guy, which I think was Inman. So let's, if I feel him a little short, let's hold that backer, let's glance, let's nod, let's turn our hips a little bit. There are little subtle things that quarterbacks do. Until he figures that out, but without making that throw, he won't figure it out, right? You know, I'm following you. To me, he's got to make that throw to figure out, okay, I knew that safety was going to do that. I knew it, I knew it.

And that backer surprised me. So now the next step in this is, I know that safety's going to do that. So let me move the backer just a little bit. Or let me look at the back for a second and bring him up. Like let me glance down to McKissick or just kind of turn your left shoulder at the back and then fire went over the top because we know he can throw the ball over the top. So again, it was on quarterback play. But to me, without doing what he did in this, the first two games, I don't think he got better.

This game I think he can get better from. That's really interesting to say that because there's no doubt that this game more than last week or even week one, regardless of the result, he was the worst player without much debate. He was the most impactful player in a negative way on the team without much debate. I want to just add to two things that you said. Number one, I throw the mistackles onto my list of things I didn't like. I thought Landon Collins had a bunch of mistackles in this game. He's had mistackles three weeks in a row.

Yeah. Three weeks in a row. I am starting, and maybe you feel the same way, maybe you don't, and maybe some of you listening have an opinion on this. But I think we're starting to learn that the skill position supporting cast isn't terrible. You know, this was a big, you know, discussion in the off season. Well, how are you going to be able to, you know, evaluate them? If you don't, if Terry McClorn is the only guy offensively that's any good.

Well, Gibson and McKissick are both pretty good. McLaurin's really good. I'd still like to see 15 Sims Jr. touch the ball more, but it looks like they like Isaiah Wright. They had him in the game, and Sims got fewer snaps because of Wright. You know, Logan Thomas made some good plays yesterday. I just think that the supporting cast, and I know there's some issues along the offensive line,

and I'm looking forward to your film breakdown of that because my sense was is that he wasn't under duress as much as he was last week against Arizona. But I don't know that we're going to be able to say that didn't have a running back, didn't have any receivers. I think that they've got more skill position talent than maybe we thought before the season started. Secondly, and that is that this R&D thing, which, I'm sure is getting old for some of you, but too bad. I wonder if his comment today, which I think is an interesting comment, right, where he says there is a cutoff point, you know, where if play doesn't improve, well, that is, I guess you can think that way after week three in an R&D season,

but it also is an indication to me, Cooley, that maybe after watching the film and then looking at the standings where this morning or after the Dallas Seattle game, Washington at one and two with one division win is actually in first place in the division. I wonder if there is a point where Ron says, maybe I should start trying to win these games. Maybe Kyle can give us just enough with the defense to win this division at eight and eight. Sure. You know? Dallas is an onsides kickaway from O and 3.

Philly clearly is not very good right now. Everyone knows New York's not very good. I think Dallas is good. Dallas is awesome. I think they actually are good. But I think they're talented. I don't know if they'll end up being good. I think they're talented.

Well, they're Uber talented. But they found ways to lose games. Yeah. Hey, a couple more observations, and then we'll get to some of their other games to the NFL and finish up for the day. First of all, one of the observations was Kendall Fuller was back yesterday, and it's clear to me, right?

Look, there were a couple of possessions where I saw him not lined up on the outside, but they had him primarily in Morland's outside spot. So that answered that. Two, Chase Young, if you watched him early in the game, Cleveland had a game plan for him. I mean, you'll be able to pick this out of the film, but they were doubling Chase Young. Now, he didn't have a lot of plays because he got hurt, and I hope he's not seriously hurt.

It seemed like he wasn't seriously hurt based on his tweet that said it's not serious, but it is a groin injury. But I guess we'll find out more. Broin their nagging. Yeah, I don't, I mean, God, I want him on the field more than anybody. But I think that was the first time we've seen, okay, somebody has seen enough on tape through the first two games to recognize that 99, you know, can't be one-on-one for an entire day. And then I had one other quick. Oh, I thought Cooley, the Inman touchdown for 7-0.

I thought there was a late hit on that play and almost a targeting on that play. I wrote down in my notes, the call on Inman was bullshit, the taunting call. because Sendejo came over the top and went helmet to helmet way late. Right. It should have at most been offsetting. But the Inman flexed on him, I love that. I had no problem with Inman and what he did there. Well, I think it's stupid to get 15-yard penalty, which, you know, then back some-

I don't think he should have, I don't think he deserved. Okay, well, say that. But getting a 15-yard penalty isn't helpful. I think what happened is he got up and he made that gesture and he was going to make that gesture whether somebody was there or not. but I thought that there was a late helmet to helmet hit that didn't get

called there and your point and I want to just go back to it for a moment because it's a really, really good observation is the two penalties the penalty on McLorn

and I didn't pick up on the Martin thing like you did, the Martin hold which you think was bullshit but the McClorn OPI is a terrible call, and it's really a hurtful call because you've gotten the ball back right down 2420. And it's a back and forth game, and you're in this game. Okay. You've had already at that point three turnovers, really two, and a few others, but you've hung in there and you've got some, you know, you've got the ball back and you make a quick throw to Terry for 10 yards to move

the sticks in a 24-20 game, and that's a terrible OPI call. There's nothing that we watch as NFL fans that says that if you don't extend and you don't really get extension on the contact that that's OPI. And now you're first in 20, and it's going to be, actually, I think we have the capability of overcoming first and 20, because I think Dwayne will throw the ball down the field. But two plays later, it's that interception by Goodson, and it's basically, you know, It's not close to game over, but now you're about to fall behind two scores, and that hurt. And then you pointed out the third and two play, I'm sorry, the holding on West Martin that preceded another turnover.

And again, he could have turned it over two plays later. But, man, there's nothing worse in the NFL, unless you've got like Russell Wilson or Aaron Rogers or a certain number of quarterbacks and offensive. talent than first and 20 or second and 20 or third and 18. It is so hard in the league to overcome that without certain talent level at quarterback, et cetera. And I thought the OPI on McLaurin was really bad. And it's unfortunate because there was nothing at that point saying because you had scored, you had scored on two straight drives. Like you were on your third drive and you gave up the lead on the previous drive.

But let's go take the lead again and you get a first down play that's a bit in a nice little 10-yard chunk play and you're moving the sticks. And there's an OPI and now you're first and 20. Let's go around the league when we come back after this word from Pepsi. Football season is back. We're all excited about football season. It's just the rhythm of the fall that football is a part of. And thankfully, we have it. And the first three weekends of the NFL have been great.

They're going to get better. We've got a great game tonight in Baltimore, Kansas City. And we are what Pepsi would refer to as the League of Football Watchers. We love football. We love watching football. And this football season will be different to a certain degree, but Pepsi's here to get you ready for game day, no matter how you watch this season. Pepsi is the refreshment. You need to power through game day and become a member of the League of us, football watchers. These passionate fans are the real generational talent that Pepsi fuels. Because Pepsi isn't made for those who play the game. It's made for those who watch it. Pepsi made for football watching. All right, let's go around the NFL. The biggest plays and the clutch moment. It's time to go around the NFL. Kooley, the Dallas-Seattle game. I think we start with that.

because we were just talking moments ago about the division and the possibility that the division could be really bad and up for grabs. With that said, Dallas is explosive offensively, and I know Seattle was hurting on defense, and they had lost some players defensively even in that game. Do you like Dak Prescott or not? Because there's something about him that I do like. And I know he made some bad plays. He had three turnovers in the game, and they were hurtful. but man, they've got some talent and I don't know.

I mean, it's hard to figure Dallas out at this point other than to say that they can really throw the football and can throw the football downfield a bunch. Before I, yes, I do like Dak Press got. It's funny because I watched every game on film throughout the entire NFL last year. Every week I watched every game. Not intensely, but I just went back and watched them all. When Dallas would lose, and they were good last year on offense. It would look like Ezekiel Elliott had 14 carries for 34 yards.

Which is what he had yesterday. That's, yes. And they'd be in games and you're like, look, he didn't have a ton of yards per carry. And I know that it was tough sliding against Seattle's defense a little bit. But you don't want Russell Wilson to have 315 yards and five touchdowns. And you have the weapon to take that away from them. You have the run ability and you have the balance. And, you know, that was a huge problem for McCarthy in Green Bay is he could never run the ball.

in Green Bay. They just never had a back. They could never run the ball. Well, he's got it. So to me, I think I thought Dak looked really good. CD Lamb and Gallup. And we've done this. Like, Damari Koo, they're hard to stop. Who's going to stop them? As far as throwing the ball, you need five DBSs back there. The good Dibs to be able to stop Dallas are very consistent with pass rush. And Dach's able to negate some of the pass rush. I thought he was pretty good. I mean, the picks you don't like if you're a Dallas fan. But gosh, you say, we can score at any moment. They are explosive. Yeah, the funny thing about Zeke,

like you've said this before when we've talked about other teams where you're like, everybody wants them to run the ball, but, you know, when you get a yard on first down, it's hard to come back on second and 10 or second nine or second and 11 and run it again. And there just wasn't any room for Zeke in this game. I don't really understand that.

I know the Cowboys are working with a, you know, a compromised offensive line right now. But I agree. Like Dallas should be an incredible team offensively to defend because Zeke is a top five back, maybe even top three. And the McCarthy points are really good one. Like if they become very run-pass, you know, run-over pass heavy, then against some of these teams that can really score with them and you're trying to keep

Russell Wilson off the field, it's going to be tough. yesterday's game was so crazy. How about the D.K. Metcalf play early where he gets, you know, he basically thinks he's sauntering into the end zone with a long touchdown pass and the ball gets knocked out from behind. I mean, we've seen that. How many times does a receive? I would have won my fantasy football league if he doesn't do that.

Is that true? Like another 80, another 70 yards of touchdown from one dude would have been about like six, 15 points. Yeah. That wasn't as bad as I've seen. That was not a long gallop to the end zone. He caught it for about eight yards out. It was a heck of a play by the DB.

Yeah, but he slowed down. He didn't spike it before the end zone. It's all on D.K. Metcalfe. There's no doubt about it. Gosh, he's got some speed over the top. Yeah. So anyway, I mean, I'm focused on Dallas because it's Dallas. They're in the division.

And I'm looking at a team that's one and two, as you said, could be O in three. but they also could have won that first game against the Rams. So one in two is probably right. You know, they missed two extra points in the game. You know, Dack did throw a couple of bad balls and the two turnovers, one early in the third, one towards the end of the first half really hurt. But the story of the game is Russell Wilson's start to this season. And we have some amazing, you know, through three-week performances going on in the NFL right now at quarterback.

Obviously, Aaron Rogers and the start he's gotten off to. Josh Allen, the start he's gotten off to. Mahomes and Jackson, who played a night and that. But at this point, you know, Russell Wilson, you know, completing 76.7% of his passes with 14 touchdowns and one interception. And the 14 touchdowns, by the way, through three games is an NFL record. He bested the Mahomes record that Mahomes set a few years ago when he had 13. through the first three weeks.

It's the extension of plays that is just, once he gets loose and he starts moving around, to me it's like a 99% probability he's going to complete a big ball to somebody. It's just impossible to cover. That first ball we were talking about with Metcalf, do you see how high he threw that ball? Oh, yeah, he throws the ball high and with great touch,

but he does for the ball high. He is for a guy to run under a ball. Yeah. That ball to Metcalf was unbelievable how high he threw it. The launch angle was crazy. He's amazing right now. So good. They're banged up, though.

They are really banged up on defense. And I don't know if they lost Chris Carson, but he got hurt in that game. It's going to be all about Wilson and Metcalf and Lockett, who's great. I've always loved Lockett. They did, you know, they've got Carlos. side on that team. So I guess Hyde could replace Carson. I don't know, man, that game was so entertaining. And it was part of an incredibly entertaining day in the NFL that started again with a couple of crazy games in the one o'clock window. Actually, you know, I'll start with the Bears. They now have

three, they're three and O. And in two of the three games, they have scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter to overcome massive deficits to win. Yesterday was Nick Foleson for Tribes. And Visky, and Foles throws three touchdown passes in the fourth quarter to beat Atlanta. And how about the Falcons? Like, how does Dan Quinn have his job today? Maybe he's been fired at this point. How do you blow a 16-point lead yesterday, a 15-point lead last week with Matt Ryan? I can't answer it on Atlanta.

I can't. Talked about it last week with Dan Quinn. He's the best at blowing leads. He's the champion going back to the Super Bowl. the Patriots. I don't know how you answer it. And how you continue with these leads and you're turning the ball over and you stop playing defense. It's just absolutely crazy to me. Atlanta should have two wins in the last two weeks. They're 0 and 3. They're 0.3.

They should be wins against Dallas is really good. And now what is a 3 and 0 Bears team? It's wild. Yeah. The other crazy game is the Rams are down 283. They roar back in Buffalo to take the lead, 3228. And then on the final Buffalo drive, I don't know if you saw the plays that Josh Allen and that offense got away with. First of all, they've got a third and 22 that they overcome early in that drive down 32 to 28. Then they've got a third and 25 that they overcome. They turned it into a fourth and eight and they get a big pass interference penalty against the Rams. And then the next play is a touchdown pass.

I think we've seen through three weeks several really good teams. In fact, I don't know if this is true or not, but I think the six teams that are, right now, I think we have, I think we have six teams that are three and O with a seventh team that'll be three and O after tonight. I don't know that we've ever had that many through three weeks. It's possible that we've had that. But we've got some really dominant, you know, really good teams so far. and I think the Rams and Bills are both really good teams.

I think the Bills are a really, really good team. I think the Rams are a really talented team. I don't know if I'm not surprised the Bills won that game. I was surprised they were ahead as much as they were. I think the Bills are a better team than the Rams. Yeah, there are some dominant football teams in the league right now. There's no question about it. I don't know if the Rams are, that division is going to be absolutely crazy with Seattle and San Francisco.

go and Arizona. I'm just never, I haven't been sold on Jared Goff as a whole. Yeah. In critical situations. Real quickly, we'll wrap it up here. The Bengals and the Eagles tie 23, 23. Carson Wentz looks awful right now. I mean, he really looks uncomfortable and doesn't look very good. What do you make of that? He's had multiple turnover games in three straight games. That's how you lose. He's inaccurate. as a passer at the point. Yeah. Titans.

Philly's in huge trouble. Yeah, they are. It's just the division's bad enough that it, I don't know. I think Dallas ends up winning nine, 10 games this year still, even where they're at. I think they're going to win 10 games.

I do too. I think Dallas is going to win this division. And I think they're going to, you know, Alden Smith, we didn't even mention him, had three sacks yesterday in that game. something's not right in Philadelphia, that's for sure. I wanted to mention real quickly in the 1 o'clock window yesterday.

The Steelers are the best run defense in the NFL, and it's not even close. They held Houston to 29 yards, 1.9 yards per rush. I think through three games, the Steelers are giving up like 54 yards on the ground per game. They're really, really exceptional defensively. And, you know, they've got Ben and James Connor look good. And by the way, Anthony McFarlane, the Maryland player that got, drafted that I'm trying to think who it was. Somebody mentioned, could have been Ryan Clark, or somebody thought that McFarlane was the

steel of the draft, and he made his debut yesterday, and he averaged seven yards per carry for Pittsburgh. But they're 3-0. Minnesota's 0-and-3. Look, I didn't see the game. I'm not going to act like I did. I know this, that they gave up 51, 54, and 4. 55-yard field goal in the last quarter and a half from Gostkowski.

And the final drive, which was on Red Zone, Garrett Bradbury snaps the ball before anybody's expecting it, you know, left and high, and it turns into, you know, second down in 28 or whatever, and that was the ball game there. The Vikings defensively have major issues, period. They've got major, major problems defensively. And Cousins hasn't been great, although, you know, We had a decent day yesterday, and Jefferson had a big day, his first big day of the year.

But they're 0 and 3. And Tennessee is good. Tennessee's 3 and 0. The AFC, man, with Kansas City and Baltimore and Buffalo and New England, and I think Tennessee and Indy may be. In Pittsburgh, I didn't even mention Pittsburgh. It's really going to be an interesting year in the AFC because everybody's assuming Baltimore, Kansas City, but there's some good teams. Tennessee can run the football, period.

They can just run it with Derek Henry and that quarterback, and they're 3-0. Anyway, the game last night, Cooley was great, Green Bay in New Orleans. Phenomenal game to watch. Good God is Aaron Rogers on fire right now. Aaron Rogers is absolutely incredible. Aaron Jones is unbelievable. That dude, Lazard made some huge plays. I think I was listening to that post game with Aaron Rogers and he said, yeah, Matt, Matt had a pretty good flow going on as a play caller throughout the year.

Yeah, I think he did have a pretty good flow. Unbelievable football right now. And I mean, the crazy thing about that game is New Orleans one and two. Yeah, and Camara's so good. Two brutally tough losses. Yeah, Alvin Camara is so good, is it? Oh, my gosh, man. Like, he was the start of the game.

well, Aaron Rogers, obviously, but how many plays did Camara make? Out of the backboard as a receiver, like his change is speed, change of direction stuff, his burst. Gosh, the play he made to what he ended up breaking like four tackles and cutting back. Amazing. You can't bring him down. No. That was a heck of a run.

No Michael Thomas for them for a second straight game. That hurts them. I mean, I have one, you know, one thing from that game. like, I bet New Orleans last night, and it didn't work out. The smell test, I think was four and five for the weekend. Um, not very good. Um, you know, it's 27, 27, 27 fourth quarter, uh, New Orleans had just gotten a fourth down stop that actually was ruled a first down, and then they challenged it and they, they overturned it correctly. And they get eight yards on first down on a breeze, uh, throw to Latavius Marie, who by the way, I like him a lot too. Um,

and then they put Tayson Hill into the game. And I don't, He fumbled the exchange. Say it again? He fumbled the exchange. He fumbles the mesh, you know, on the zone read, and it's a turnover, and it's like, man, you know, you're at midfield in the 27-27 game in the fourth quarter, and you just got seven, eight yards on first down. You're going to come in with Tassum Hill there. Why? Yeah.

I don't, why? That's a great call four drives in in the second quarter. You don't need that balance in the fourth quarter with Drew. agrees. I agree. Yeah, that's like, hey, let's keep them off guard. Let's show them a different package here in the first half. It'll set them up, you know, whatever. That's too big of a drive. Like, in your second and three, you got all the momentum. You've got a defensive stop for the first time in a while, and you've got the ball in their territory, and you're going to go down and take a 34-27 lead in the fourth quarter. And, you know, you may not stop Aaron coming back the other way, but then

you'll have the ball to end the game and a tie game. I mean, and you turn it over right there with with the backup, you know, a gimmick. I like Taysam Hill. I mean, he's a hell of a runner. But I just thought that that was crazy in that particular spot. And Peyton, you know, he does that every once in a while. You know, last year in that playoff game, he put Hill in there on a couple of plays that worked and then a couple that didn't work. But anyway, some really good football over the weekend.

I loved the college football Saturday. It finally felt like a real college football Saturday with major upsets. K State coming from behind to beat Oklahoma. And Mike Leach, man, Cooley, this dude can coach offense. KJ Costello broke the SEC record for passing yards in a game. And Mike Leach's first game is Mississippi State's head coach against the defending national champions in Baton Rouge. Costello throws for 623 yards in five touchdowns.

That Leach, man, he just knows what he's doing with a pass offense. I mean, all of his quarterbacks, too. I mean, it doesn't matter who he has. They didn't just break the record. It was by 100 yards. They shattered the record. And it was against L.S. You talk about an arrival to the SEC.

Yeah. So we watched some of that game. And at the end of that game, you always talk about college coaches going to the NFL and if they want to make that step to the NFL. And I honestly, right now, this was what I thought about during that game is there's really a couple schools of offense in the NFL.

It's the Bill Walsh school, which ends up being the West Coast system and the Cori-El system. And then slight variations. New England's the only team a little bit different. Some of college stuff has been implemented now, but the languages are whatever they are. Mike Leach makes the jump to the NFL. If he does, it could be the Leach system. You really could run that, huh? I mean...

It's more than the potential... Like, this is the weird thing for Leach. It's more than the potential to be able to be that guy that made the jump. It'd be the potential to be that guy that really changed NFL a little bit with a new system. And he's so good with quarterbacks. He's just, you look at what he's done with quarterbacks over the past few years. We're sitting there saying, because Luke Falk, we all, I met a bunch of buddies from Logan High School. And Luke Falk, who was drafted by the Jets and was bad last year under the worst coach in the NFL gaze,

we're like, you're telling me Luke Falk can't, like, he did that with Leach. You're telling me Luke Falk can't play? And Gardner Minchu comes in, and you see what Minch is doing in Jacksonville. And it's just like whatever Leach touches as far as a quarterback over the last few years is gold. Yeah. Yeah. That was amazing. That leech thing was amazing.

Yeah. College football was crazy. The Texas Tech, Texas Tech was late was unbelievable. Kansas State beat Oklahoma. Oklahoma can't play a lick of defense. Like last year, they suck on defense again. Yeah, it was a crazy day. Kyle Trask, the Florida quarterback through six touchdowns to beat Ole Miss in that game.

And he came in last year for Felipe Franks, who is now the quarterback in. Jesus, where was I watching Franks the other night? Why am I blanking on this? But anyway, I said last year I'll never forget it after the first game Trask played in. I said, you know what, that guy's going to be an NFL quarterback. Dan Mullen knows how to coach quarterbacks. he picked the right guy. This guy's going to be a Heisman trophy candidate next year. Six

touchdowns in his debut. But anyway, it felt like college football on Saturday to have real teams, you know, on TV all day and all night long. And we'll get more of that here over the next couple of weeks. All right, let's wrap it up.

Before we go, can I give you one more thing? You'll be proud of me. Yes. I watched all the second half of the Lakers game. Right. I have one take from this game, obviously. And I mean, we watch some of the heat stuff to the heat are amazing.

Their turnaround's unbelievable in this one year. But we watched all the Lakers game. And at the end of the Lakers game, they have the whole celebration. And then they're talking to all the guys. And LeBron James, they asked him about carrying the team. And he said, yeah, I can carry the heavy. My shoulders are wide enough to carry the heavy load. But my mind's even stronger.

It's like one of those moments were like, God, could you just defer to a great team? My show, it was almost verbatim. My shoulders are wide enough to carry the load, but my mind's even strong. Like it was so narcissistic. I know a lot of people like him. A lot of people don't. He's polarizing, but it was just so hard for me to swallow. Oh, it's hard for me to swallow any of his stuff with that sense.

He's amazing. He was amazing. He was so good in that game down the, He just has broad shoulders. You can't stop him. And it looks like his mind is strong, but God, he doesn't need to tell us about it. He's just so affected and everything in his life right now. You know, he's just, I don't look, I don't want to get into the whole topic.

I find him to be incredibly phony. I don't find him to be super intellectually brilliant by any stretch of the imagination. with that said, and I get into this argument with my boys every single time he plays the way he played the other night. And they just want to say, is he better than magic now, Dad? Is he better than Michael now? Come on, you have to finally admit it. LeBron's the goat.

You know, two of my three boys, like Kobe and LeBron, that's the list for them. He is, I mean, he was so good the other night, and he impacts the game in so many ways. and his basketball IQ has always been off the charts. He makes everybody better. And now, you know, he's got that ability to close out games. I say now it's been that way for several years. I'm not trying to act like it hasn't.

He's going to his 10th finals for crying out loud. But at the same time, he does it in an era of, you know, putting together these teams. Like, okay, well, try to do it without Anthony Davis. You know, try to do it without Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosch. But that's the way it happens in this day and age. I mean, you did it a couple years ago against Golden State. He shouldn't have happened, but he did do it. I mean, he, he, with Durant, of course.

But, but, you know, this thing with Anthony Davis, who is borderline rigged, you know, to ensure that the Lakers had a chance. You look at that, you look at that Robbizman and the Dwight, Howard's only got to do Dwight Howard things, play defense and rebound. Yeah. I mean, they're stacked. All right, your Zoom's breaking up.

We had some issues over the last 15 minutes with your Zoom, but it's fine. We got through the important stuff today with no issues. All right, have a good day. Cooley film breakdown on the offense tomorrow.